


Muffin Silvertongue

by imachinator



Category: Multi-Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Action, Adventure, Aftermath of Torture, Angel Wings, Angels, Angst, Angst and Humor, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Catholic Character, Catholic Guilt, Demons, Drama, Dubcon Kissing, Dubious Consent, Eleggua, Exu, F/F, F/M, Fallen Angels, Fandom, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Homophobia, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Ikto, Iktomi, Inktomi, Kissing, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Native American Character(s), Norse Mythology - Freeform, Other, Pagan Gods, Paganism, Pansexual Character, Past Abuse, Psychological Torture, Racism, References to Marvel, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Religion, Road Trips, Romance, Sexism, Slow Build, Star Trek References, Star Wars References, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, Torture, Trickster Gods, Tricksters, Veeho, Wings, dubcon, fangs, raccoon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 81,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5037391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imachinator/pseuds/imachinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fresh out of what was supposed to be eternal imprisonment, a damaged and disoriented God of Mischief is forced to seek out help in the human world against a threat he can't face alone. Help comes in the unlikely form of a sexually confused fandom blogger with crippling social anxiety on top of a boatload of Catholic guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> While not technically a fanwork itself, Muffin Silvertongue is my love letter to fanworks, fandom, and fiction in general. If you've ever read or written fanfiction, drawn fanart, run a fandom blog, or otherwise poured out your obsession with fictional characters online, this story is for you, for all the joy you've brought me.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

" _There’s a monster at the end of this book. It’s the blank page where the story ends and you’re left alone with yourself and your thoughts_."  
\- Night Vale podcast, Twitter

 

A writing professor once told me never to begin a story with a character waking up (incidentally the same writing professor who told me never to begin a story with a prologue). He can go fuck a duck. Because the first stories and _all_ stories really begin that way, whether we mean them to or not. Because there are some things that sleep buried in the breast of the human world, things we like to call monsters, even when we’re not sure what they really are… _because_ we’re not sure what they really are.

Because we humans, who define ourselves as a species by our ability to name, enlighten, and explain, can’t abide what we can’t define. Because what are teeth and claws to the agony of confusion? What’s a faceless Stormtrooper with an E-11 blaster rifle to a naked aggressor with human eyes? What’s the bellow of a dragon to a quiet whisper of doubt? Those ambiguous parts of our world that force us to question everything that makes us feel good, and safe, and sane... those are our real monsters.

We fortify our homes and our souls against our monsters. We bury them under layers of whatever we can scrape together—threats, rationality, religion, good old fashioned denial—all hardened with the glue of stubborn effort to form the foundations on which we’ve built everything we know. This story, just like any story worth telling, begins when one of those monsters begins to stir.

So—fuck a duck, Professor Ives—in a deep place, our monster _woke up_.

The first gasp pierced him like fire, arching his spine against the rocks. The stillness around him had been airless and stale for as long as he could remember, leaving him utterly empty each time he tried to suck some of it into his mangled lungs… but not this time. This time the breath filling his chest seethed with something new, something that made his eyes snap open to an awareness he had not felt in an age…

Just a few molecules of it, a bare taste of a world that had all but faded from his memory. At first he didn’t think he could trust his senses. I suppose it’s hard to trust anything when you’ve been tricked so manytimes. So, even though it hurt him to tears, he had to crack his jaw open on its broken hinges and wheeze in another breath, just to taste it, just to let himself begin to believe it was real.

As that second guttering gasp raked through the silence, his ears twitched at the unfamiliar sound. For an eternity, the only sounds in his world had come from outside his own throat… from the monsters that came cawing and cackling out of the darkness whenever he allowed his fraying mind a moment to rest. He knew their sounds all too well.

He knew the soft hiss of the serpent that liked to coil its body around him, locking his limbs up in its embrace while it dripped venom from the tips of its fangs onto his face. His eyes would burn, and burn, and finally melt out of their sockets, letting his brain and mouth to fill up with the maddening sting of the poison, all to that tender _hiss… hiss-ss-ss-ssss_ …

He knew the forbidding wingbeats that heralded the approach of the horrible hungry creature. He knew the snap of its beak as it tore into him, jabbing its way in between his ribs in search of the tender organs it liked best. He knew the clatter of its talons as it finally stepped back from his gutted body to digest its meal. He knew the quiet shifting of its feathers as it waited patiently for the muscle and flesh to grow back over his immortal bones… so that it could start in again.

The only words he ever heard came from his formless visitors. The gentle tingles of shadow that liked to slink up beside him in the dark and croon in his ear with voices like venom and silk, offering him comfort. Like children, they made a game of lying to him, sweetly, earnestly, promising him respite, forgiveness, freedom… if he only gave up his deepest secrets, if he confessed his guilt, if he tore out an eye or chewed off one of his limbs. And once he had broken done what they asked, they would just laugh. Laugh and laugh until they melted away in the tumble of their own echoes.

But of course their cruelest words, the ones that left their claws lodged in his ears long after the voices had gone, were the ones that were true.

“ _You brought these tortures on yourself.”_

_“It’s in your nature.”_

_“You are a blight on everything you touch. You know this.”_

_“This is the only place for you, the only kingdom you will ever rule.”_

_“You belong here.”_

_“You deserve this._ ”

He could never quite defend himself against his tormentors—against the words, or the claws, or the poison—although not for lack of trying. He always tried, tried to fight, to argue, to bargain, to beg… but no matter how he gulped, and heaved, and strained, he could never force a whisper of sound past his lips. Here, in the darkness, he had no voice. It was locked up, like his limbs, under layers of magic he could neither break nor whittle away by any effort. So, no matter how he screamed “Please stop!” or “No, not the face!” or “Get fucked!” no matter how he sobbed, there was nothing but silence. After so long, it had started to seem like maybe he had never had a voice of his own to begin with. Certainly, he could no longer remember what it had sounded like…

Until that one simple breath, when the sound of his own expanding lungs scraped through the silence. It was then that he knewthat something had broken open… an infinitesimal crack in his soundless hell. This was not a trick, not just one of the monsters’ cruel designs on his mind. The breath had come from inside him… it was his and he was _real_. His eyes were wide open in the darkness now, his whole being drawn in something between amazement and disbelief. And for the first time in an age, he felt the twisty gears of his mind begin to whir.

_There was a way out…_

His body was too emaciated and too shattered to move under tons of rock pressing down on him, but as he drew in another shuddering gasp, he reached into a hungry, impossibly undaunted place inside himself and moved it anyway.

_There was a way out, there was a way out…_

Shaking hands lifted and fingers already bloodied thousands of times from scrabbling at the foundations of his prison curled against the wall and began to _scratch_ …


	2. Pandora's Shoebox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, chronologically, this chapter is a long-ass extension of the prologue (which was mostly there to introduce big buckets of angst and mythology references), but content-wise, it’s considerably more important to the plot, so I wouldn’t skip it. Now, prepare for ALL the mythology references!
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

" _forgive and forget?? haha no resent and remember_ "  
\- mpreg-harrystyles.tumblr.com

 

“But the dinosaurs didn’t realize…” I said in my best foreboding whisper, “The prison wasn’t strong enough…” I gripped the sides of the colorful shoebox and watched my sister’s eyes widen in anticipation. “They thought they were safe… until the ground under the city started to _shake_ …” I rattled the shoebox. “And the walls started to _crack_ , and _crumble_ , and… oh no! The dragons have escaped!”

“ _Oh no_!” Gabby cried out as we each picked up a plastic dragon. It was a new expression for her, so of course she liked to use it to death. And I was happy to give her the opportunity during our games.

“And now they’re going to come in… and knock it all down! Oh no!” I cried out, crashing my dragons into the intricate block fortress I had made.

Ecstatic at the cue to begin the destruction, Gabby uttered a squeal of delight and started swinging her arms around into this tower and that one. “Oh no! Oh no!” She went on giggling until all the blocks had tumbled down around us and for quite a while after that. “Oh no! Oh no!”

It had taken a lot of time—and tears—to get Gabby to understand that she had to be patient and wait until the right moment to knock down my carefully constructed block castles, but the torrent of excited joy when the time finally came was worth it for both of us.

Since starting kindergarten, I was overflowing with ideas for stories. And through lots of playing pretend with friends at recess, I had perfected the art of suspense and dramatic flare. Now, as I watched my little sister tumble in the blocks, practically screaming with giggles, I thought that there was nothing I like better than this feeling…

“And now?” She laughed eagerly, pulling herself back up into a sitting position with her pudgy little arms. “And now?” They were words she had learned from me, from all our hours of playing pretend.

“And now…” I hadn’t actually planned the story beyond the destruction of the dinosaurs’ castle, but one look at the eager shine in Gabby’s eyes and my mind surged back into motion. “Now… they have to quick find somewhere to hide before the dragons can catch them!”

“ _Hide_ ,” Gabby repeated, eyes wide.

“Yes,” I say, snatching up my three dinosaurs. “Hide, quick!”

“Hide quick! Hide quick!” Gabby scrambled to pick up her dinosaurs and follow me over to the bookcase where I had already set about making a cave out of some leaning VHS boxes.

There, on the living room floor, with a little plastic cast of characters, a carpet kingdom, and Gabby’s rapt attention in my hands, the world was perfect. I could go anywhere I wanted, _be_ anything I wanted, and have the joy of knowing I was drawing bringing else along with me, sweeping their little heartstrings up into the plot with mine through all the wonder, and thrills, and drama… Here, I could ignore the rest of the reality. Sometimes I could even ignore Mama and Papa yelling at each other in the next room.

The dinosaurs had just struck up a tenuous truce with the dragons and returned with them to the ruined castle to begin its reconstruction when we were interrupted.

“Jocelyn?” Mama called. “Honey, come here a second.”

No. I scowled over my shoulder in the direction of the stairs. _No._ The story wasn’t _finished_ yet!

“Five more minutes!” I called.

“No… honey, we want you to come now,” Mama’s voice was quieter that time, a little strained.

“Mom, _no!_ ” I snapped in frustration. It took a lot of effort to get Gabby to play along with me for this long; I didn’t want to lose her now! We hadn’t even gotten to rebuild the castle yet! That was going to be the best part of the story—

“Now, Jocelyn,” Papa’s voice called more evenly and I knew I didn’t have a choice.

“ _Fine!_ ” I growled and threw down my dinosaurs. Grumbling, “I’ll be back in a second, Gabby,” I half-stomped my way across the living room and up the stairs.

Mama and Papa were in their bedroom. I could tell they had been talking by the way they both looked at me when I appeared in the doorway.

“Jocelyn…”

Mama closed the door behind me and I turned to look at it, suddenly worried. My parents never closed the door unless there was something serious to talk about. Had I done something wrong?

“Sit down, _mi amor_ ,” Papa said softly and it didn’t seem like he was angry.

I crossed to scoot myself up onto the edge of the bed while Mama and Papa both came to stand before me.

“Honey…” Mama began. “Your father and I have something… well… _two_ things to tell you. You know how we’ve been talking about moving for a while now. Well, we are… moving that is.”

“Why?”

“There are a lot of reasons, Jocelyn,” Papa said slowly. “The main one is that your mother and I have decided to get divorced.”

 _Divorced…_ The word fell on me like a blanket of ice. I knew what it meant from school, from other kids, but that was just it… divorces were something that happened to other people, not to me… not to _my_ parents! Mama and Papa argued a lot, but they had always loved each other… hadn’t they? They’d always been together, holding everything up. If they weren’t together then… then…

“So,” my father said when he realized I wasn’t going to respond. “What this means is, when we move, your mother and I will be moving to different houses. You and Gabby will still get to see us both. Just… half the time you’ll stay with your mother, and half the time you’ll stay with me.”

He finished and I could feel my parents looking down at me tensely, waiting for me to say something. But I couldn’t speak.

“We need you to understand, honey,” Mama said. “This doesn’t mean we don’t love you or your sister. We still love you very much. We just… oh, honey…” Mama held out her arms to me. Just hers. Before, Mama and Papa would hug me both at once, making a sandwich of their arms around each other with me in the middle, closing me up on all sides with they’re warmth and their love. That was what I wanted at that moment. It was _all_ I wanted. But Mama had pushed her way in front of Papa to open up her arms to me and he was just standing there.

“Jocelyn, come here,” Mama said gently.

But I couldn’t step into her arms. If going to Mama meant being away from Papa… I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I also didn’t—I didn’t know what I wanted. So, I turned and ran out of the room and down the stairs. Gabby looked up at me, still holding onto her dinosaurs, as I came out into the living room.

“And now?” She said expectantly.

I couldn’t answer. I could only shake my head. Back and forth, harder, and harder, and harder until I was almost dizzy with it and Gabby started to cry.

I had never felt this way. Like the floor had dropped out from under my feet. Like my world had no ceiling, no walls, no arms around me to hold me tight and keep me safely in place. The blocks were still strewn across the floor. But they weren’t an enchanted ruin anymore. They weren’t a place that I could run into and hide. They were just blocks. They would always just be blocks and the dragons were just plastic… and I was suddenly hollow inside. I hugged my own arms around myself, but they couldn’t anchor me any more than the floor or the ceiling or walls made of stupid wooden blocks.

And I felt myself tumbling through the emptiness.

...............................................

The barriers crushed in around him as thought throwing all their might into one last attempt to suffocate him. But he strained on through even as he felt skin and muscles tear under the pressure. His claws were broken. His fingers bled. But that didn’t matter. None of it mattered as he scrabbled his way upward through the layers of solid stone faster… faster… faster, dislodging pieces of his prison with each frantic heartbeat. Jagged rock dust stabbed at his eyes and filled up his mouth until it burned all the way down his throat with every labored gasp, but he did not slow down. As the rocks loosened, they fell on him, bruising muscle and crushing bone, but he dragged himself up through any gaps he could find, in any form he could squeeze himself into, changing and regenerating as he went, as only he could.

Then he saw it. He _saw…_ For the first time an eternity, he _saw…_ There was _light_. Just a pale glimmer of it at first, giving shape to the tunnel he was carving out before him and the emaciated lines of his own hands. As he clawed onward, his eyes adjusting, the light grew, revealing the blood on his fingers. _Red_. It had been so long since he had known color that even the sight of his own open wounds seemed filled with unbearable beauty.

And, as he heaved his broken body another inch upward through the stones and then, there it was… the sky… a window of indescribable blueness that held promises of clarity, and endlessness, and breakneck speeds…Using all the strength he could summon, the shape-shifter squeezed himself down into the smallest thinnest, form he could manage. Arms and legs folded in, his spine lengthened and, in a moment, he was gliding upward, dragging his smooth black scales between the last of those accursed rocks. The opening was tiny, but through the sheer rippling of will and muscle, he forced himself out into the sunlight.

_Sunlight!_

The searing rays on his scales gave him the last burst of energy he needed to uncurl into his human form, battered and broken, but whole… _alive._

This was wild country, ancient and mountainous. And, though his memory of being imprisoned was still foggy and far away, he got the feeling that the soaring walls of rock and their clinging trees had not changed much in the ages since that day. Of course they would put him here, far out of the way of civilization, far from the buzz of living minds that gave him his strength.

Unwinding onto his knees, he threw his head back and sucked in a breath of clear, fresh air… the first full breath he had taken in lifetimes. He stayed suspended there for a moment, raised up on his knees like a single exposed nerve, his chest swelled full of the raw consciousness of the living world. The starved hollows in his body fleshed out with dreams. His torn muscles restrung themselves with schemes. His heart fluttered with music and then began pumping in earnest as the rhythms grew louder, sending ingenuity surging through his veins. And for a tremulous moment he was whole. For a moment, everything was going to be alright.

Then, on the next breath, it was too much. _Too much._ And he suddenly found himself choking. This was not the world he had grown up breathing in those half-forgotten days. It was fuller, brighter, more intertwined, busy with days full of engine-sped trade and commute, and nights lit by electric connections. Instead of the millions of minds he was used to juggling, somehow, suddenly, there were _billions_ … Instead of pockets of thoughts and voices connected by threads of river, roadway, and beaten track, there was a vast _web_ of them spanning the entire world between skeleton towers, fanning out in electric threads so fast and fine, he might have spun them himself. What were these things shooting their way in and out of him? Bullets? .mp3? .jpg? What were these texts and tweets? These words he didn’t know? When had the transfer of information become instantaneous? When? When had language learned to ride on lightning?

He should have slowed down, tried to breathe steadily, but he had never been particularly good at doing what was good for him. Unable—unwilling?—to stop the world from pounding into him, he heaved, hyperventilating, onto his hands like a dying madman gulping down saltwater to quench his thirst.

His hands scrabbled, trying to push himself up off the rock, but his sense of balance, his sense of gravity was gone. His eyeballs trembled, practically vibrating in their sockets as though they were about to pop out of his head and go bouncing across the rocks to see the world without him. New arteries and appendages burst from between his bones like snakes, ripping through his insides in their fervor.His skeleton kept changing shape, vertebrae bucking and cracking, frantically trying to accommodate this flood of new things—these new songs and slang, and memes and giggles, text and texts, .mp3s and .mp4s…He didn’t even know what these things were, but they were part of him… all of him… He no longer knew himself.

Mere moments out of his prison and he was going to die, torn into pieces by this web that was somehow woven into him and hell bent on ripping him to shreds… And after being crushed into that tiny space for so long, he was almost inclined to let it… let the electrified winds scatter him into a billion molecules of smoke and vapor until instead of being so many clamoring things, he was nothing… nothing at all…

He closed his eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” a voice said above him. But he was not sure he _was_ afraid.

It might be freeing—perhaps it was the only way he could really be free—to just drift away into the mist, right out of existence… after all, he couldn’t recall a time when his own existence had brought him anything other than agony…

“You are going to be alright,” the voice said and he became aware for the first time of its owner, standing over him, radiating a strong deceptively warm glow that he remembered, that he remembered too well. A god.

His eyes blinked open as a single memory sharpened in his mind… the memory of the last time a god had stood over him…

“Don’t be afraid,” the god said again. “I’m here to help you.”

He wheezed out a mirthless laugh and for the first time, the convulsions started to subside. For the first time, he felt some sense of steadiness in his own body.

“Easy…” The god reached out to him and he recoiled. Shrinking like a shadow away from her light, he remembered who he was. He was the antagonist. The edge of the shadow and the fringe of the flame. He was the one who walked between worlds, who lived on the borders where others feared to tread. He was guile, artifice, trickery…

“Mischief…” the goddess said as the spasms through his body slowly ceased and his features stopped twitching to settle into an expression of pure loathing. “What’s happened to you?”

 _I think you know,_ he wanted to spit but for the moment he only had the strength to lean into the rocks and breathe.

“I am so sorry,” the bright one folded to her knees much closer to him than he liked. A weightless veil of gold and moonlight rested on her hair and a crown made of the warm glow of a thousand compassionate hearts encircled her head. “I wish we could have freed you sooner. It took us years to whittle open even that small breach. There were more of us when we started you see. Now I’m the only one… they decided that I should be the one to meet you when you made it out… to give our apologies for what was done to you. We truly—”

“ _Shut up_.” His voice was ragged from millennia of disuse… or screaming. He wasn’t quite sure.

The bright one pressed her lips together, looking down for a moment before trying again. “I realize this must be difficult for you—”

“I said _shut up_!” He growled more viciously. It was a mistake. He felt a vocal cord snap, his body jerked, and he turned onto his elbows, coughing. His eyes watered as he hacked up bits of rock, followed by a good deal of his insides.

“Careful,” the goddess said, wincing at the sight. “You shouldn’t speak yet.”

“I’ll speak when I want to!” He just managed hack out of his breaking lungs. He wasn’t going to let a god silence him. Never again.

“This isn’t going to work—I can’t help you—unless you’re gentle with yourself.”

 _I don’t want your help_! He tried to spit but found himself gagging on his own blood. He lifted a shaking hand to his mouth to try to keep it from spilling out and found his fingers crumbling, flesh and fingernails flaking off into scales that broke into ash against the air. He couldn’t do it. Even with his heavy hatred to ground him, he couldn’t hold his body together.

“Easy,” the goddess said anxiously. “Please—try not to strain yourself.”

But it was impossible not to with the voices of this whole, overgrown world screaming like a hurricane through his veins. As a deity—a god? A demon?—of art and language, he had never had trouble processing human voices, but now he was forced to grope blindly through them, sifting, searching for something that would make this new and unfamiliar world make sense to him. Through the cacophony, he slowly started to sense which stories and songs were new, which had changed… which were missing.

He had thought the pain couldn’t possibly get any bigger… but he was wrong, he realized, as he knelt there with the reality of centuries of innovation, revolution, conflict, and genocide sinking into his bones. So many religions forgotten, so many languages fallen out of use, whole civilizations razed and buried, thousands upon thousands stories lost along with any memory with the people who had lived them… and this near-alien world of terrible wonder built on the bones of the silenced. It made a cold shudder creep through him.

And, as he began to grasp just how much the world had changed, he was overtaken by a darker, more selfish thought. How long had it been? How long had he been locked away that he had missed so much? How much of his life had they taken away from him? How many moments of wonder? How many chances to say goodbye? _How long?_ … Sorrow seeped into his rage and tears dropped from his eyes, burning into the rocks like acid.

Above him, the goddess was rummaging for something in the folds of her robe. “I have something that should help. Here.”

She held out a folded garment of deep blackness that at once shone and swallowed up light like a pair of wondering eyes. His cloak. He stilled at the sight and a furious need filled him, elbowing its way in beside his rage. The cloak was a part of him—his fur, his feathers, his armor against the world—ripped away from his body, right out of his skin when they tried to take his power from him all those lifetimes ago.

“I would tell you how hard it was to steal,” the goddess had the nerve to smile. “But, being you, I doubt you would be impressed.”

It was a test. To see if she could melt him, if he would smile for her. He wouldn’t. He would have liked to refuse the offer altogether, slap it away and spit poison in her face, but he had not touched his cloak in so long… the need was too strong. Looking away from the god, he swiped the garment from her with a clawed hand and wrapped himself up in it.

Wrapped in the magical fibers he had woven for himself over centuries of careful craft, he felt a security he had almost forgotten. He let out a long breath, feeling a thousand knives and needles of pain retracting from his body with his relaxing muscles. The power of the world stopped racking him and instead eased its way into his brain and bones, breath by breath. It still hurt. It still made him tremble, but it would not be life if it didn’t…

He sat for a long time, letting the world’s energy flow back to him in its rivers, streams, and tiny trickles until he was at last able to weave them together to mend the worst of the damage to his throat. The he looked up at the goddess sharply.

“Alright,” he tried, his voice still scratchy, but distinctly stronger. “What do you want?”

“I want you to heal.” She sounded so earnest he could have ripped out her lying tongue.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” he bared his teeth, his every syllable dripping with malice. “You gods would never let me out unless there was something you wanted from me, so _what is it_?”

“Believe me, Mischief, relieving your suffering was reason enough—”

At that, a hoarse laugh scraped its way out of his throat. “Okay, okay, the first time was funny, but you’re wasting both our time with this façade. Lying is my department.”

“So, you _do_ still know who you are,” she said tentatively.

“I suppose so… though I don’t remember _you_. What’s your thing? Theater? Song? Self-righteous smugness? You released _me_ , so that rules out anything along the lines of wisdom or common sense.”

“I am Mercy. Do… do you not remember me?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t. Mercy, Justice, _Power_ … you big golden gods all look the same to me.”

“You _are_ a god, brother. You remember _that_ don’t you?”

“Hmm, let me see…” He feigned thinking. “I remember you all gathering around your high table, ruling I was in fact a _demon_ and… oh, something about shutting me away where I could cause no more disruption and… yeah, that would be about the _last_ thing I remember. Thanks for that.”

“That decision was made as a result your actions,” the goddess said, “not the nature of your being. You may be different, but you are and always have been counted among the gods. You have always been one of us—”

“ _I am not one of you_!” He roared, unable to contain his rage.

“Please,” the bright one looked about nervously. “Brother, not so loud.”

“Why not?” The dark one rasped viciously, flecks of blood bursting from between his teeth. “Don’t the other gods to hear and find out what you’ve done? That you’ve let loose the disgusting creature they took so much trouble to destroy?”

“We were not trying to destroy you.”

“No, of course not. You just left me under a mountain of rock to be tortured by monsters for innumerable centuries. Much more reasonable.”

“Mischief…” The bright one eyed him with guilt and no small measure of concern. “I know that what we did to you was cruel… but no one every sent any monsters. You were down there alone.”

“No…” It was a lie. Another trick. It had to be. And they _would_. Those bastards _would_ whip up horrific tortures and then pretend it was all his doing. That was their usual way of dealing with anything they didn’t want to admit to. Always easier to convince themselves that it was all the work of someone else—the dark one, the strange one, the _other_ —than to have to look in the fucking mirror.

“No, no!” He tried to heave himself up in his rage, but only succeeded in hacking up more blackness. Even choking on the miasma of his own insides, he managed to rasp, “That’s a lie, you cow! It’s a lie!”

Gods only ever lied—to themselves and to those they wanted to keep in line—and the purer their appearance, the deeper their dishonesty. He knew that by now.

 _Or is it that you know she’s telling the truth?_ The monster crooned as his own black eyes laughed at him from the puddle of innards. _That your head has become so twisted around that even this vain, self-satisfied god sees more of you than you can?_

“No…” he breathed, unable to stop trembling. He was supposed to have left the monsters below. “It’s not… it’s not—”

_But you said it yourself, vermin; you’re the liar. You are._

“Shut up!” He screamed, slamming his fist down so hard that part of it broke into dust. “I hate you! I _hate_ you!”

_I know. That’s why you’ll never really leave that cave._

“ _No_ …” He moaned curling up on his side. “ _No, no_ …” He covered his head and pulled his cloak up tight around him, but the chuckling voices just seemed to press in closer with it, wrapping their little hands around his neck and sinking their poison into his veins.

The goddess reached out to take his shoulder and he surprised even himself with how violently he flinched away from her touch. The last hands laid on him had manhandled him into shackles and brought a mountain of rock down on him. He wanted no god’s hands anywhere near him… In fact, he didn’t think he wanted any hands to touch him ever again.

When the goddess leaned toward him again, she was holding a vessel of crystal water in her left hand.

“This will help.” She moved forward.

“No.” He recoiled from the clarity of the water. The last thing he wanted was to be ‘purified.’

“It won’t harm you,” she lied. “It will only cleanse you some of the poison… some of the pain.”

“I said _no_!” He _needed_ his poison and any amount of pain and insanity came with it. Right now, it was the only thing familiar enough to keep him anchored in his own body.

To his surprise, he goddess stepped back with a respectful nod. “Very well.” She tipped the bowl, emptying its contents onto the ground at her bare feet.

“Really?” He said mockingly as he watched the crystal liquid wash a few splattered drops of his blood from the rocks, leaving them clear and untouched. “You’re not going to force it on me? What kind of sorry excuse for a god are you?”

“Healing of this kind can’t be forced. You have to choose it.”

“You mean choose to be _like you_ ,” he sneered.

“It is for you to decide what you need to be well again. Not me. Not in this case.”

He just scoffed. Gods always thought the affairs of others were theirs to dictate and this one was no exception. She was trying to win his favor, to lull him into trusting her kindness enough to do as she says. He was not falling for it.

“Stop with your lies, and _stop_ looking at me like that!” He snarled up at her falsely pitying eyes. “You did this! You put me down there!”

“Yes…” She said, doing a halfway decent job of looking as though the words wounded her to the heart. “We put you there. At the time, it was what we all decided—what I genuinely believed—to be best for the world. That was a mistake… one we are all paying for… one I am _trying_ to rectify.”

“I’m sorry. You also seem to have made the mistake of assuming I care. Just to be clear, I don’t. At all. I couldn’t possibly care less what kind of problems you divine morons have made for yourself in my absence or why you freed me.” He turned onto his side away from her, curling up in his cloak. “… I hope for your sake it wasn’t for my forgiveness because I can tell you now that I will _never_ forgive this.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” The goddess says sadly. “I know the limits of my power. But I think would can find a little mercy in your heart for yourself and the rest of this world… once you grow to know it again.”

He was barely listening. He had become intrigued by the ooze of his own guts over the rocks. Had he always been so grotesque inside? Fascinated, he placed a fingertip in the puddle and it tingled.

“Listen… whether you choose to care or not, our current situation is dire.” She said as he drew a curving line through the mess. “And—Mischief, _please_ , that’s _disgusting_.”

“So is your face,” he muttered into the folds of his cloak. “S’not my fault.”

“What are you even…?” She leaned in to see what he was squiggling in pool of blackness. “Oh alright, very mature.”

 “What are you going to do? Call the other gods and tell them I need a timeout. Oh wait, they already—”

“The other gods are not coming for either of us, brother.” The bright one’s voice grew strangely quiet. “… They are gone.”

 _That_ caught his attention and he lifted himself up on his elbows. “Excuse me? They’re _what_?”

“I said the gods are gone.”

“I heard you,” he snapped impatiently. “Define ‘ _gone_.’ Oh, _do_ tell me they’re dead!” he clasped his hands together in eagerness that wasn’t entirely pretended.

“They are not dead,” the bright one said quietly. “They have been… imprisoned. I am still not sure how, but—”

“ _Imprisoned!_ ” The dark one cried, his voice cracking into a malicious cackle. “ _Ha_! Even better! Funny how things come around, isn’t it?” Heavens, it felt goodto laugh again! Even when it was filled with so much malice and pain. “Oh, you _have_ to tell me how _this_ happened.”

The goddess took a breath. “The gods and demons, all the sentient deities, have been taken captive. Except for you, I am the only one left who has eluded capture. I think the impeccable shielding around this place protected you while the rest of us…” She trailed off, looking down. _Protected…_ interesting choice of words. “The mortal realm is on the verge of a quiet doom,” the bright one said seriously. “The humans don’t know it yet, but life… the whole world as they know it, might be about to come to an end.”

“Oh?” That piqued the dark one’s interest. “So, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands? And did it ever occur to you that releasing _me_ might be the single _worst_ thing you could have done under the circumstances?”

“The end of humanity means the end of _you_ , Mischief. You have to know that… You will die.”

“Something I’ve been fervently praying for—unanswered, I might add—for quite some time now. What’s your point?”

He saw the guilt twist into the bright one and felt a surge of vindictive pleasure at being able to inflict some kind of pain, even if he was far from strong enough for a physical struggle.

“This isn’t the kind of apocalypse you will like,” the bright one said after a moment. “A single entity has taken control of all the sentient deities, bending them to one mind, one will.”

“All of the sentient deities? And you think that, even if I wanted to, I could reckon with a force of that size?”

“I think that you will have to.”

“Are you an idiot?” He snarled. “Look at me!”

“I am,” she said with the serene air of a god peering past the exterior.

“Then you see—”

“I _see_ the depth of the damage inflicted on you…” her eyes filled with tears. “It’s enough to split a being into pieces… I see a soul capable of horrific cruelty, but also great creativity, and deep love.”

“Really?” He let out a derisive laugh. “And you credit _me_ with an active imagination.”

“A hundred thousand years you’ve watched over the crossroads of human existence. Now it’s your turn to choose a path… I think that once you’ve found your way back to yourself, you will be able to play the odds… as you always have.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter that I believe it. What matters is that _you_ believe it.”

“Stop,” he spat in disgust. “ _Stop_ pretending that my well-being means a thing to you. You’re just embarrassing yourself.”

“Mischief—”

“It’s sad really. You think this gesture will absolve you of the guilt that’s finally caught up with you? Did you think your _goodness_ so great it would touch my heart and inspire my forgiveness, you arrogant cow? I am well aware that you came for me for no other reason than to put your own mind at ease, so don’t come to me trying to pass off a convenient, centuries-late attack of conscience as virtue.”

The goddess shakes her head miserably. “It may not matter if you believe all I’ve told you of our trials, but you don’t know how much I wish I could make you believe that I am _sorry._ ”

“Oh, I believe you,” he said, looking up into her face with a vicious grin splitting his face. “I believe you’re _very_ sorry. Maybe you weren’t at first. Or maybe you were, but didn’t dare raise your objections in the face of such unanimity. But now… now you know what it’s like to be alone and hunted. Now that you’ve run out of places to turn for help, you have no choice but to remember the bastard deity you locked under the mountain all those ages ago. Now you feel remorse for what you and your friends did to me. Now that you _need_ me. So, do I believe that you regret imprisoning me? Oh, yes. Just not half as dearly as you will regret releasing me!”

“You can make the right choice.”

“I _can…_ ” the dark one said with a twisted smile. “Or I can do this. _Hey_!” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted in a perfect imitation of the goddess’ high, clear voice. “ _Hey, apocalypse-bringer! What say we finish this?_ ” The sound was magnified by his old herald’s power to fill up the canyon and echo through wind and water to any deity in the hemisphere. “ _I’m right here! I am ready for you! Come take me if you think yourself so powerful! Come on! Come and get me!_ ”

“ _You!”_ The goddess’ eyes flashed with outrage that quickly turned to panic. “What have you _done_?”

“Sealed our doom?” He said with an uncaring shrug.

“No. Worse.” She stood for a moment with her head down, seemingly weighing her options. She bit her lip. Then, “Go,” she said softly.

“ _What?_ ” He had expected her to be angry, to hate him. She was _supposed_ to hate him.

“I knew what this might cost me when I set out down this path. I’ll hold him for the few seconds I can. Fly.”

“I— _can’t_.” He growled. He couldn’t even _walk_.

“You have to.”

He barely sensed the approaching deities before a hail of spears burst out of the sky. He flinched back, but Mercy threw her body in front of his, flinging her arms wide in a protective shield. It wasn’t strong enough—maybe it was never meant to be strong enough—to protect them both. Several bolts stuck in the shield of her magic while others caught her feet, pinning them to the ground, and one drove deep into her body just beneath the ribcage. Two pierced straight through her open palms. She was finished. But not one spear had touched him.

The dark one’s breath caught in horror, but his gaze was not on the impaled Goddess of Mercy, nor on the dead-eyed gods standing silhouetted high on the lip of the valley… it was on the light rising in the sky behind them. He knew that clear, steady grayness… Not a cloud. Clouds rolled, and billowed, and breathed. This was a characterless wall, made of the unfeeling hardness of an entity that knew nothing of passion… He knew who it belonged to before the deity himself advanced over the mountaintops. And he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

So _this_ was the being that had somehow consumed all others…? The dark one swallowed and felt a hideous coldness creep across his skin… the goddess really hadn’t been kidding when she said this wasn’t his kind of apocalypse.

 “Fly…” Mercy’s voice was quiet and choked with pain. “ _Now_!”

And the dark one didn’t need telling twice. Pulling together all his accumulated strength, he leapt into the sky, twisting his cloak around him to fuse with his skin and fan out from his body into feathered wings of midnight black. Few other beings would attempt such a stunt after an age of magical atrophy, but flight came as naturally to him as breathing. And once his wings had grasped the sky, there wasn’t a being in the universe that could catch him. His mangled wings could only keep him in the air for a moment, but that was all he needed. In a single thunderous crack of speed, he had left the goddess and his prison far behind.

He didn’t look back to see the grayness overtake her. He didn’t look back to see her light vanish, but he could feel it anyway… as one feels the last candle go out in a drafty room.

Falling out of the air, he ended up broken on a hillside, at the edge of a world he didn’t know anymore, unable to piece himself back together. He should have been thankful that he was free, thankful he had gotten away. But that was not what he felt as he pulled himself into a huddle at the roots of a tree. Trembling, he ground his head into his knees and clutched his cloak around him, feeling smaller and more worthless than he ever had in the darkness of his prison.

 _What have you done?_ The monsters hissed in his ears. _What have I done?_


	3. The Purple Magpie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that we've gotten a chunk of our mythology references out of the way with our antihero, let's join our heroine for all the fandom references! Yay!
> 
> Just a quick note on formatting: In the original document, I use different fonts to distinguish between the text on Jocelyn's blog, her word documents, her notebook, the fanfiction site, etc. Here, obviously, that isn't possible, so I've put all of it (blog, fanfiction comments, handwriting, etc.) in italics. This means that I'm relying on formatting, content, and context to make the distinction between the different media. Please let me know if anything is confusing.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog here at imachinator.tumblr.com. I have NEW ART UP, so check it out!

 

" _In an unfortunate development, I am now awake_ "  
— tehhufflepuffcompanion.tumblr.com

 

The sound of my alarm clock drags me, unwilling, out of the murk of sleep. Groaning, I stick an arm out from the covers to grope for the snooze button. Once I’ve slammed a silencing palm down on the terrible noise, my hand swings over to crawl sluggishly across the keyboard of my still open laptop. The machine that is my heart wakes up with that hot stir of fans I know so well. I can type the password and find ‘Enter’ one-handed without looking. And when I finally manage to turn my head and open my eyes it’s on the same glowing blue page I wake to every morning… my home:

 

_**ThePurpleMagpie** _

_18\. Straight-A student by day, god of fanfiction by night. Writer. Feminist. Half Mexican. Half White. Catholic. Bisexual… I think? Who knows? Who knows anything?_

_This is a multifandom blog. LOTR. HP. Star Trek. Star Wars. Game of Thrones. All things Marvel. All things DC. Greek & Norse mythology. Occasional Shakespeare. Basically anything with glorious action, an interesting universe, and pretty, pretty characters._

 

I do most of my blogging at night, under cover of my many layers of blankets, but a morning never passes that I don’t at least glance at my activity. Twenty-one new followers since last night. Not bad. Not great, maybe, but certainly not bad… The next thing I click is always my fanfiction page:

 

_** The Purple Magpie ** _

_Joined: 21 Aug 2006, Profile Updated: 2 July 2015_

_Author has written 46 stories for DC, Marvel, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Princess Tutu, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Sherlock, Supernatural, and Star Wars._

_Over my years on this site, I’ve written a lot of stories, some of them—most of them, probably—crap, some of them hopefully halfway decent, but whichever of my works brought you here, I hope it gave you something to enjoy._

_I write mostly adventure, romance, and psychological dramas (the three tend to mix) for pretty much every pairing and fandom under the sun. In any of my stories, there will be humor and there will be fluff, but if you don’t enjoy a little pain, you’re probably in the wrong place. You have been warned; I sit on a throne of cries._

 

_** Fandoms ** _

_DC (19)_

_Marvel (12)_

_Star Trek (6)_

_Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien (5)_

_Princess Tutu (3)_

_Game of Thrones (3)_

_Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling (2)_

_The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien (1)_

_Sherlock (1)_

_Supernatural (1)_

_Star Wars (1)_

 

Seeing that my latest chapter of _40 Nights to Infinity_ has new comments, I roll eagerly onto my elbows and pull my laptop closer.

 

_**quantumflux** chapter 33. 45m ago_

_Best chapter yet, Magpie. Totally amazing! I follow you for your beautifully crafted plots and the crazy twists you pull with them. Well played. I totally did not see this one coming, but now that I’m looking back I actually see how well you built this up with all the foreshadowing you put in. I also thought Murdock’s reaction was great, a perfect mixture of betrayal and regret. It’s totally true to his character and you wrote it beautifully. Can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next! Please update again soon… before we die from the suspense!_

_**DreamCatcherInTheRye** chapter 33. 1h ago_

_Have to agree 100 percent. This chapter is one of the most amazingly wonderful, amazingly painful things ever. I have loved every turn this story has taken because apparently I hate my heart. Keep it up. I’ll be looking forward to the next chapter._

_Lovely angst :D_

_**ravenofazarath** chapter 33. 1h ago_

_LOOOOOOOOOVED this chapter! can’t wait for the next one!_

_**JaimieSparrow** chapter 33. 2h ago_

_My facorite chapter so far! But why the cliffhanger? WHY? >?? PLEEAse update soon!!!!!_

_**KitsuneCutie** chapter 33. 6h ago_

_ok nice chapter but there are a few MAJOR problems i have to bring up_

_frist of all, i was actually really insulted by the portrayal of shapeshfiters in this chapter (and tbh this hwhole fic). Like, why do the skrulls always have to be the villains???? as a shapeshifter spirit this really hurts me. i wish ppl would have more respect for my culture :(_

_Also, trigger warninggs please. There was alot of swearing in this chapter. so sad i still have to remind people about this. i know you can do better in the future uwu_

_**PrincessKanna** chapter 33. 6h ago_

_OMG, OMG, OMFG!!!!! I did not see that coming! I can’t believe Maya Lopez was actually the Skrull queen all along!!! How could you do this to my heart?!! OMG, the suspense—I can’t even! You’re the best!—but i hate you—but your the best! And i hate u so much! My feels—I can’t—talk later… must go die now._

 

I feel my mouth curl into a pleased grin. There are few things more satisfying than eliciting exclamation points. I press the end of my braid against my lips, crinkling my nose against the soft prickle of a million split ends, and click to the second review.

 

_**superlunapizza** chapter 33. 8h ago_

_I foolowed and liked this fic for all this time, but this chapter was HORRIBLEEEEEE!!! How could u butcher everytnig u set up and the romance u had betwen matt and maya it just makes me sick ND IT IS NOT OKAY TO DO THIS WITOUT PUTTING ON A CHARACTER DEATH WARNING! At least a fucking OOCness tag!! ! I will say it one more time: THIS WAS NOT OK! WORST chpter ever and i’m so disappointed with ur writing and im done with this fic._

 

That one makes me chuckle aloud. I was wrong; there is _one_ thing more gratifying than exclamation points and that is rage… the impotent, disbelieving rage I get whenever I pull one of my major plot twists. I take a sort of sadistic glee in the knowledge that I can drive someone a thousand miles away into an emotional frenzy with just some words. The fourth review down, not too surprisingly, is from one of my oldest and most treasured readers.

 

_**CaptainQ** chapter 33. 6h ago_

_Well done, Magpie. Once again, it looks like you’ve managed to rip out hearts and really piss a few people off, I’m sure you’re pleased. Really well-crafted as always. My only tiny, tiny, nitpicky-as-hell complaint is that Carol’s emotional progression might have suffered a little bit from the same affliction as Thor’s did in your ‘Roads Apart’ fic. Her emotional turn from hurt to embittered seemed a touch rushed to me. Maybe add an extra inner monologue to flesh out the transition, or maybe a conversation with another character, like you did with Thor and Fandral in ‘Roads.’ Although I can see that you were trying to keep the focus of this chapter on Matt’s crisis of faith (which was also brilliantly heartbreaking, for the record), so maybe not. I don’t know; you’re the master, girl. Also, I feel like I could have used a tiny bit more foreshadowing of the role of the Kree government’s role in the conspiracy (unless you actually had more in there and I just missed it. Must reread now!!!)_

_All in all, this chapter really was a symphony of awesome. Keep it up, Magpie. And, as always, live long and prosper._

 

“Jocelyn!” Papa’s voice calls up the stairs. “Breakfast is ready!”

“Just a second!” I say as my fingers scramble to form a clever response to CaptainQ’s review.

“You’re not on your computer, are you?”

“No.” I hit ‘enter’ and stumble out of bed. “No, I’m getting dressed.” Crossing to the clothing pile that made it out of the basket, but never quite into my drawers, I dig until I find my favorite pair of jeans and some underwear. “I’ll be down in a second!”

Unable to come up with a matching pair of socks in the mess, I end up with one Wonder Woman sock, and one with green stripes. Not like it matters. They’ll just go under my boots anyway. Once I’ve slid out of my Batman pajamas and into the crisp discomfort of my outside clothes, I pull the hairband out of my hair and set about undoing my dark waist-length braid. A night against my pillows so tangles the segments into one another that they’re nearly inseparable in the morning. Sighing in impatience, I snatch my brush off the bedside table and start to drag it through the mess. I haven’t cut my hair once since I was little. I don’t really know why. It gets hot in the summer, it prickles with static in the winter, and it gets in the way all year round… but I’ve just had it this length for so long I can’t imagine it any other way.

Once the worst of the tangles are out, I scoop it all back and start to braid it again, my fingers moving with practiced speed.

“Jocelyn!”

“I said just a _second_!” I growl, taking the braid over my shoulder to finish the bottom half.

“You’re going to be late,” Dad says. “I can’t give you a ride today. I have a meeting.”

“I’m not going to be late,” I say irritably. “It only takes me half an hour to get to school.”

“Well, get down here anyway. Your eggs are getting cold.”

“Okay, okay.” I twist the end of my braid into its hairband and flip the whole thing back over my shoulder.

When I make it downstairs, my dad and my little sister are settled at the kitchen table. Gabby already seems to have consumed two whole eggs and is globbing salsa on a third. She must be preparing for another one of her growth spurts. At just eleven, she’s already coming annoyingly close to my height… Not that that’s saying much. I’ve always been one of the shortest kids in the class.

“Are you all packed up?” Dad asked sliding an egg onto my plate.

“Not yet.”

“I told you to get all your stuff together last night.”

“Yeah, well… I didn’t,” I say disinterestedly.

“ _Jocelyn_ ,” Papa heaves that disappointed, almost despairing, sigh that I hate more than anything in the world. “You’ve _got_ to be more one top of things. You’re going to be in _college soon_.”

“Not that soon,” I say, like I always do, although a nervous tug inside me reminds me that that’s increasingly less true.

“You need to start being more responsible.”

I just glare down at my egg and take another bite.

“You know, when I was your age, I was already working. But I knew I needed to get out. I knew I needed to go to college. So I worked, I worked with these two hands, until I had the money to pay my own way through school.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I knew what I wanted and I went after it.”

“I _know._ ” I stab my fork into my egg. Dad never gets tired of telling me how together he was when he was my age, how hard he worked; I’ve heard it all a hundred times. And somehow it never makes me see any more clearly or feel like working any harder… it kind of just makes me want to throw my plate across the room.

“Jocelyn, do not take that tone with me,” Dad says sternly. “I am trying to help you.”

“Yeah, well you’re not.”

“Guys, no fighting!” Gabby pipes up through a mouthful of egg.

“Sorry, Gabby,” we both say.

For a moment, Dad is silent. He presses his lips into a thin line and then clasps his hands on the table in front of him, the way he always does when he is less than happy, but wants to keep his voice calm and even.

“Have you at least looked at any programs?” He asks me finally. “NYU, USC, Carnegie Melon?”

 “Yeah. I think my advisor gave me the application packets for them… at least for the first two.” I just hadn’t bothered opening them yet.

“Well, I’d like to look over what you have with you, just to—”

“They’re at Mom’s house.”

“Well, bring them here, you understand? You know how your mother is about these things.”

I do… which is precisely why I left all the application packets there. Mom doesn’t nag. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even remember I was supposed to apply to college at all until a month after the deadline if I didn’t occasionally remind her. She’s too wrapped up in her art.

“Have you given any more thought to what you’d like to major in?” Dad asks.

“You know what?” I put down my fork. “I’m going to go pack my bag.”

“ _Jocelyn_ ,” Dad says sharply, but the days he could intimidate me with his hard stare and humorless voice are gone and I’m already climbing the stairs.

In my room, I slide my laptop carefully into my backpack and then put in whatever else will fit around it. I hate going to Mom’s house from Dad’s… at least, as far as rooms are concerned. At Mom’s I may be free from constant pestering, but everything is cramped, and creaky, and dirty. It’s a good thing that as long as I have my laptop and a decent internet connection, I can be at home anywhere.

There isn’t time to really do my makeup properly, but then again, makeup is always kind of a lost cause with me. There’s never anything I can do to make my round, babyish face look more elegant or… womanly. Today, I settle for just slapping some concealer on over my freckles and heading back downstairs.

“Have you got everything?” Dad asks as I sit down to lace up my boots.

“Yes.” Judging by the fifty pounds bearing down on my shoulders, I sure do.

“Are you sure? Did you double check?”

“Yes,” I say impatiently.

“And you’re meeting with your advisor today?”

“Yes.” We’ve only talked about this a hundred times already.

“Well, remember to ask her about AP preparation… and your ACT scores… and application deadlines.”

“I will, Dad.” I say, tying off the lace of the second boot mid-calf and standing up.

My tennis shoes are actually more comfortable for walking, but I need the three-inch wedge under my heel to make me tall… well… tall _er._ Without it, I might as well be another baby-faced freshman, straight out of eighth grade.

“Don’t forget to pick up milk on the way home from school. You know your mother always forgets.”

“I know.”

“And…” he lowers his voice, glancing back at Gabby who is still putting away eggs and salsa. “And tell your mother she needs to get Gabby to her piano lessons on time. She can’t keep letting—”

“You tell her,” I say coldly. “I’m not your messenger.”

I pull the door open and step outside before I get a chance to see whether his expression is one of hurt or annoyance.

“Hey, Jocelyn,” he says just as I start down the front steps.

“What?” I turn back.

“I love you.”

“Love you too,” I say without looking at him and hurry down the steps.

It’s getting cooler outside, cold enough that my little hoodie is barely enough to keep the chill off my skin as I make my way down the front walk. Wind rushes through trees high above my head and I look up to see that fire-like oranges, reds, and yellows are already seeping into some of the leaves. As I pass by the oak in the front yard, wind stirs the branches and a dozen crows take flight in a mess of black wings… all except one, which stays there, its claws shifting tentatively. Clutching hard to its precarious perch, the bird cocks its head as though trying to get a better angle on me. And suddenly the light that catches in its eyes is too sharp. Too pointed.

“What are you looking at?” I blurt out.

Startled by the sound, the crow flaps from its branch and takes off after the others, its dark wings cutting a jagged black blur through the overcast sky.

Wiggling my earbuds into my ears, I turn on my iPod and put it on shuffle. I generally don’t care what crap I listen to. As long as it booms loud enough to drown out reality and I can focus all my thoughts on the realms of fiction, I’m happy. Next to the hours spent lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, my daily walk to school is the time I do most of the planning for my fanfictions. It’s here I have the time and solitude to turn over my ideas before putting them to paper, or text box, or word processor.

I started writing fanfiction when I was ten or eleven. And as soon as I got my first impassioned review and that thrilling little spark of pride lit inside me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. The stories were too fun, the characters too loveable, and that ability to reach into someone else’s soul over any distance and pull out raw emotion far, _far_ too intoxicating for me to ever give it up. I spun stories out of pretty much anything—any character, or plot thread, or concept—that caught my fancy. And, over years of scribbling, and typing, and dribbling, and drabbling thoughts into words, I became quite the master of my craft. What began as fluffy little Teen Titans oneshots and directionless ficlets for this-or-that ship soon sprawled and deepened into full blown epics, with grand, nuanced plots all their own.

 _Roads Apart_ , the sixty-chapter-long Loki-centric adventure/comedy/psychological drama I concluded last year has the distinction of being one of the most read fanfictions of all time on all three sites where I posted it. That’s how most of my followers first found me. I’ve moved on to other projects now; so far, none quite as popular as _Roads Apart_ , but I still have a veritable army of devoted readers.

Recently, I’ve returned to my other too-long Marvel Cinematic Universe fic, _40 Nights to Infinity_ , and a years-old Star Trek fic, both of which I’ve been promising to update for years, and a cooler, larger scale DC-Marvel crossover fic I’m actually pretty excited about that I’m calling _Crossfire_. With this one, I’m going to see if I can take all those plotting skills I developed while writing _Roads Apart_ and apply them to a bigger super-powered cast. I mixed DC and Marvel once before with my Wonder Woman/Thor crossover, _Immortal Coil_ , but that was basically about just four characters in a pretty straight-forward set-up—Diana and Thor vs. Loki and Circe—making it easy to plot and organize. _Crossfire_ has upwards of twenty key characters, all with their conflicting interests, complicated schemes, and tenuous alliances. Four chapters in and it seems to be going well… and by well, I mean I’ve made at least one of my readers cry. That’s pretty good for just the fourth chapter. Now I just have to find a solid, not-too-contrived reason to get Miss Martian to Apocalypse without her presence interfering with the Nightcrawler subplot I’ve just managed to set up… There are a number of ways I could do it; I’m just not sure which one is going to fit her character arc the best…

With my music blaring reality into the background, I start to play out Scenario One in my head, roaring emotions, bright colors, big explosions, and all. This one certainly has punch to it, but it might be a little violent… particularly given the way I’ve set up Miss Martian’s character so far… Time to mull over Scenario Two. But just then, something brings my train of thought to an abrupt halt.

I think I see something move in my periphery, just out of sight behind me. I pause my music for a moment and listen as I walk, but there isn’t any sound… weird. I put the music back on and try to regain my train of thought. What had I been doing? Right. Plotting how to get Miss Martian to Apocalypse without— and there it was again. Something—just a bare flutter of movement— in the corner of my eye, matching each step like a shadow. But the weak light this morning isn’t creating any shadows. Pressing the ‘pause’ button with my thumb inside my pocket, I listen again. But there is still no sound, just a vague, overpowering feeling that something is moving behind me… following me.

My hand clenches around my iPod. I press my lips together as I try to decide whether or not I should turn around and look. Should I? Or should I just walk faster and hope I get to school before… before what? What if nobody is following me at all and I’m just being a paranoid idiot. But then, what if someone is following me? I should turn and check. Or should I? If I turn around and look, my follower will know I know he’s there. But then I’ll also know, right? Right. So, I should look… Yes. Yes I should. Pulling in a deep breath through my nose, I turn around and…

A cat.

It’s just a little black cat, padding along four sidewalk squares behind me on white paws.

“God,” I let the breath out, feeling a flush of mingled relief and embarrassment wash through me. My heart is still pounding in my chest and I feel like a complete idiot.

The cat, frozen the moment my eyes fell on it, is still standing with one paw lifted in mid-step, its round eyes fixed on mine. There’s something… a little strange about those eyes, I notice as I stare into them. The cats I’m always watching and reblogging online often have wide—even expressive—eyes. But there’s something really off about these ones. There pale green color, I guess is normal, but there’s a sharp, laughing twinkle in the black centers I think of as belonging only in a human gaze. Mildly unnerved, I shake my head and turn to continue on my way. Almost immediately, I sense the cat moving along behind me again.

“ _Stop_ that,” I snap, turning on the animal.

Once again, he freezes mid-motion a few sidewalk squares away, as though I can’t tell he’s been moving. And, once again, his eyes seem to be laughing at me. Which is just wrong because cats can’t laugh. That’s not a thing.

“I don’t like being stalked, okay? Go find yourself a squirrel to chase or something.” I also don’t know why I am suddenly feeling the need to talk to every animal that crosses my path. It’s not generally a habit of mine.

“Go on. Go away,” I make a shooing motion with my hand and then set off down the sidewalk again. I’ve barely walked a quarter of a block when my fists clench in my pockets and I turn around again to the sight of the same stupid cat, still four sidewalk squares behind me.

“I suppose you think this is funny,” I say shortly. If I’m honest, it _is_ a little bit, but I don’t want the little guy following me all the way to school. That could get awkward.

Just then, the cat’s ears twitch forward and he turns to look down the street. I hear them before I see them, but there’s no mistaking who it is… that distinctive brand of aggressively stupid laughter can only belong Alejo and his little entourage, on their trick bikes. Usually I try to get to school before they come this way. I shouldn’t have left so late.

The white-pawed cat turns his glinting gaze at me one more time and then darts soundlessly into a nearby bush. Shoving my hands deep into the pockets of my hoodie, I put my head down and resume my brisk pace, hoping that for once they’ll just ride by and leave me alone.

No such luck.

“Well, hey Chavez,” Alejo says, pulling his bike up next to me. I feel like I could choke on the smell of all the gel in his hair. “Watcha doin’ Chavez?”

I don’t answer. I just set my jaw and keep walking, my eyes fastened determinedly on the sidewalk in front of me. I know I can’t outpace him, so I just keep my eyes focused on my feet so I don’t have to look at his face. My first instinct is always to turn my music up to drown out their stupid voices. But one time I did that, Alejo reached over and yanked my earbuds out, breaking one of them.  It wasn’t like they were super expensive to replace or anything, but since then I’ve settled for just not responding to their taunts.

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Alejo says in that half-flirting, half-threatening tone he likes to use. “You could at least say hello. Hey… hey, _poncha_! Why you never look at me when I’m talking to you? Come on, now.  Look at me.”

I don’t. One of his friends wheels his bike around to swerve in front of me, making my heart jump in alarm. My steps only falter slightly before I pick up my stride again, but it’s enough to set them laughing as like it’s the funniest thing in the world. A hot mix of hatred and embarrassment swells up out of my pounding heart, but I do my best to quiet it. Getting angry doesn’t help. The best I can do is just not let it upset me.

_“Qué pasa, poncha?”_

“’Ey, don’t be rude, Luis. You know she can’t understand you when you speak Spanish.”

They all started laughing and my teeth grind together so hard it hurts. Fucking this again? Really?

I don’t know where Alejo and company got the idea I don’t know Spanish. Maybe from my pasty skin? The freckles? Or maybe the fact that my English is so much better than theirs? In any case, my alleged inability to speak Spanish has been their favorite subject for a while now.

“‘Ey, poncha, why don’t you say something in Spanish for us? Or do you even know any?”

My Spanish, for the record, is actually fine—better than Alejo’s anyway—I just don’t use it much. A long time ago, when my family was together, we spoke more Spanish than English some days. But after my parents’ marriage ended, so did the Spanish… That was when my dad got colder and more serious, and said Gabby and I needed to focus on having perfect English, so that we would have a future in this country. My mom hadn’t spoken any Spanish since then either. It reminded her too much of Papa. I only speak it now with Gabby, when I’m feeling particularly warm toward her… in those small moments when we feel like little kids again.

Spanish is a language of comfort for me, a language of love and closeness. I don’t use it with anyone at school. And I certainly don’t use it to dignify the taunts bunch of class-cutting assholes who somehow think that being half white is a reason to torment someone…

“Come on, poncha! Say something in Spanish! Just ‘hola.’ Say ‘hola.’”

“Or ‘panocha,’” Luis added to several appreciative sniggers.

“Just try it.”

I keep walking.

“Or don’t you talk at all?”

They wait again to see if I’ll try to retort, but I keep silent.

“Come on, don’t be like that. Say something in Spanish for us.”

Every Spanish curse word in my vocabulary pops up in my mind, but I keep my mouth shut. Not for him.

“Fine…” Alejo reaches out and shoves me hard. “Bitch.”

The push wouldn’t have done much, but the weight of my backpack pulling down on me makes me stumble and I almost fall.

Alejo and his friends have never physically hurt me… at least not more than a casual shove into a chain-link fence or the occasional empty soda can thrown in my direction. The worst any of them ever did was spit on me when I ignored him, which was gross… _so gross,_ but not dangerous. They like to act tough and scary, but they’re actually just idiots with nothing to do. They don’t cross lines that could get them into trouble… which is good for them. Because if I ever came home with a visible bruise from one of them, my dad would probably hunt them down and beat the shit out of them with his bare hands.

By now we’re nearing the intersection where Mike, the crossing guard is waiting for us. Mike has a particular loathing of Alejo and company, probably because they have a habit of ignoring his warnings and just speeding on across the street in front of cars. Knowing Mike doesn’t put up with them harassing other students, they split, pedaling their stupid trick bikes off ahead of me, still exchanging congratulatory laughter.

 _Good riddance,_ I tell myself, trying to garner enough rage to smother the lump in my throat. I don’t feel like listening to music anymore. I tell myself what Alejo and his friends say doesn’t matter. I _know_ it doesn’t. It’s just a little depressing when the most attention I get from anyone all day is from a bunch of bullies. As always, after they’ve gone, a shaky little part of me wishes I could throw myself on the ground and start crying right there. And it’s all I can do to choke it down before I reach the crosswalk.

“Mornin’, Josephine,” Mike smiles at me.

“It’s Jocelyn, actually,” I say, but he’s already making his way to the middle of the crosswalk with his sign held aloft and his arms out to halt the oncoming traffic.

“Hey,” he says as he walks me to the other side of the street. “I saw those boys circlin’ you back there. They wasn’t givin’ you no trouble, was they?”

“No,” I lie, swallowing the lump pulsing up in my throat. “No, we were just talking.”

“Alright. You let me know if there are any problems.”

“Okay.” I force my face into a smile. “Thanks.” And I keep walking.

What am I supposed to say? What kind of high school senior has to go whine to the elderly crossing guard about bullies?

I try to drive Alejo from my mind over the last few uphill blocks to the school, but his stupid sneer refuses to leave me alone. If my life was one of my stories, I could probably engineer some poetically horrible accident to befall him… I could have him hit by a car while blowing past the crossing guard, have the brakes magically disappear from his bike while he coasted down the hill… But this isn’t one of my fanfictions. This is real life… and real life sucks. Well… okay, to be fair, things suck in my fanfics too, but they suck to a purpose. I’m always steering every event, every little gesture, every line of dialogue toward one grand endgame and somehow, it always leads to something meaningful.

That’s the real difference between what I write and what I live, isn’t it?... In fanfiction, I know where everything is leading, and how, and why, and what it all means, but my life doesn’t go anywhere or mean anything special. In my life, when things suck, they just suck. There’s nothing heroic in overcoming to the suckiness, nothing poetic in succumbing to it... The best I can do is try to ignore it.

Westchester Public High School has a student body of a little over fifteen hundred, small enough that people who want to can know most people’s names, but big enough that someone like me can disappear, ignored, into the crowd. The school day, as usual, is pretty boring. There’s a little twinge of nervousness inside me over my impending meeting with my advisor, but mostly it’s just boring. I spend most of it scribbling fanfiction outlines in my notebook—taking breaks to doodle only when I run out of drafting energy—all the while keeping one ear on the lecture to make sure I don’t miss anything too important. Dad would probably have a heart attack if he knew how little attention I pay in most of my classes, but I’ve managed to coast my way through on all straight ‘A’s for three and a half years, so as far as I’m concerned, I have nothing to apologize for.

I don’t talk to anyone today. I rarely do. It’s not like I have any friends at school to talk _to_. I know other people online have friends in the real world who share their interests. The pickings have just never seemed particularly good at Westchester. There are a couple of other internet-consumed fandom nerds in my classes, but they’re all either into anime (which I haven’t watched that much since middle school) or shower so infrequently it’s difficult to breathe around them… or both. As for the normal people, I have acquaintances here and there who will smile at me in the halls, I get a long okay with the math team guys from my calc class, and the Mexican girls in my world history class have always been nice to me… although I’ve never really felt like one of them.

When it comes to close friends, my notebook and my laptop are really all I’ve got. I study alone, eat lunch alone, walk to and from school alone… and I like it that way. I really do. I mean, sure sometimes I get lonely—who doesn’t?—and sometimes I wish there was someone I could talk to about my feelings, but this is just the way I am. I like being alone. It gives me more time to focus on fanfiction to please my small army of followers. They’re the only real friends I’ve got. As long as I have decent Wifi and a keyboard linking me to them, I’m happy.


	4. Shit Gets Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for the kudos and the follows on Tumblr (and all this before the cute kitty-cat even shows up!). You guys are the best.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

" _idk what i’m doing w/ my life but i know i’m doing it wrong_ "  
– urbancatfitters.tumblr.com

 

“So, have you given any thought to what you’re looking for in a school?” My advisor, Ms. Phillips, asks leaning slightly toward me in a way that makes me feel trapped between her and the wall of her tiny office.

“I um…” I know the kind of school my _dad_ is looking for. But I’m not sure I _want_ to go into accounting. And I haven’t talked about college with my mom. “I-I guess, somewhere I can… I’m not sure.”

“Well, that’s something you’re going to want to figure out as soon as possible,” Ms. Phillips says. “You have the grades and test scores to get into probably anywhere you want. It’s time to start working on solid applications for the schools that matter to you.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “I just… I need to discuss it with my parents.” I already know exactly what my dad wants in a school. Something prestigious and intense. I’m just sure that was what _I_ want… I should talk to Mom about it. Of course, it’s hard to get her to sit down and talk about anything remotely practical for more than two seconds, but I’m going to have to make it happen. I need her input before I can make a decision. I just hope she has better—or less overbearing—advice than Dad.

Ms. Phillips is still talking, babbling on about the importance of picking a school that’s suited to my academic and social needs. It’s all stuff I’ve heard before. And none of it makes the affair any easier. I _still_ don’t know what I want to do. I’m good at a lot of things—math, science, English—but it’s not like I’m passionate enough about any of them to know which one I want to study for the _rest of my life_. I don’t know if I want to go to a big school, or a small school, or a conventional one, or a quirky one. I don’t know what kind of career I want. I don’t know what kind of _life_ I want. I’m not focused and driven like Dad… or Mom, really. Both my parents always knew exactly what they wanted from their lives… even when that no longer included each other. For all their faults, right now, I’d kill for a shred of their conviction.

Casting around for something else to think about, I find my eyes resting on the bike racks. I can see them through Ms. Phillips’ office window. I can see Alejo’s bright red trick bike, locked up next to Luis’s green one and the rest. I imagine for a moment that we exist in one of the universes I write in. I imagine Superman melting those stupid bikes with his heat vision. I imagine Magneto twisting them into useless knots of metal. You know, maybe I’ll write in a scene in which Magneto destroys some douchebag’s bike… just for my own satisfaction.

“So, Jocelyn, what was your ACT score again?” Ms. Phillips asks, pulling me back into reality.

“Oh—um—thirty-two,” I say, “But I was going to try one more time for a better score.”

“And which AP exams were you planning on taking?”

“Calculus, statistics, lit and composition, and language and composition.”

“Good. That sounds good.”

“I um… I was wondering,”— _actually, my_ dad _was wondering—_ “Are there any extra things I should be doing to prepare for the AP exams?”

“Oh, yes, there’s actually quite a lot of helpful material online for that.” Ms. Phillips turns to her computer to pull up a new window, still talking, but I lose the rest of her words as my attention is drawn back to the bike racks.

There is someone standing by them now. I probably wouldn’t have looked twice at him—it’s not uncommon for people to cut class out by the bikes—but he doesn’t quite look like he belongs and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him before. Well… I can’t actually _see_ him now, per se. A long black coat covers most of his body and there’s a hood drawn up over his head, hiding his face. The coat is what really catches my eye… and I’m not quite sure why. It shimmers somehow without catching any light and at the same time seems to eat up all the light around it… Squinting, I try to figure out what it could possibly be made of. Leather? Some kind of silk? But no fabric I know has that bewilderingly shifting darkness to it. And even setting aside the mysterious coat, I think I would have remembered someone with this guy’s… _bearing_. He saunters along the bike racks with an easy grace that brings to mind a stalking cat.

I watch as he stops at Alejo’s trick bike, trailing a finger slowly, almost seductively, over the handlebars. Then, to my shock, he takes hold of the cables connecting the brakes and nonchalantly yanks them out as though they’re no tougher than sewing thread. I blink hard a few times, not sure if I believe what I just saw. But when I open my eyes the last time, the boy in the black coat is gone… just… _gone._ A raven flaps over to land atop the tree across the street, but there’s no sign of the boy. Did I… imagine him? I look down at my knees, getting worried. Sure, I fantasize a lot of things, but I’ve never started _hallucinating._ What’s happening? Is there something wrong with me?

“Jocelyn?” Ms. Phillips says uncertainly.

“What?” I look up sharply.

“Are… are you alright? You look a little pale.”

“Um—yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I’ve got a bit of a headache.”

“Oh… do you think you need to see the nurse?”

 _Maybe. I really hope not._ “No. I’m fine. This… this happens a lot. It’ll go away in a minute.”

“Alright,” Ms. Phillips says. “Well I was just saying, you’ll need to fill out this sheet for me so I can write you a letter of recommendation.” She hands me a paper and I look down at it stiffly. ‘About You,’ reads the title line. Goody. I’ve realized since I made my first miserable attempts at a college application essay: there is precisely one thing I suck at writing about and that’s myself.

_Hi, I’m Jocelyn Chavez. I live on the internet, I don’t have any friends and now, apparently, I hallucinate disappearing shadow men. Accept me!_

“You’re sure you’re alright?” Ms. Phillips asks as the bell rings.

“Yeah. I’m good.” I stand up with the ‘About You’ sheet crinkling a little in my grip. “I um… I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can.”

“Take care.”

“Thanks. Thank you. Bye.”

In the bathroom I splash cold water on my face, not caring that it washes away my hastily applied concealer. After several cupped-hands-full cold to the face, I grip the sides of the sink basin and stare hard at my reflection. _Okay… I’m okay,_ I tell myself, doing my best to hold my own brown-eyed gaze. _Nothing weird here. Everything normal… everything normal._ But I can’t get the black-clad man out of my head for the rest of the day. As spacey and daydream-prone as I can be, nothing like this has ever happened before. I’ve never lost my grip on reality.

It’s a good thing balancing equations comes so easily to me because I can barely concentrate on my chemistry test last period. I can’t stop thinking about the man in the black coat. And the more I think about him, the more I’m sure he was really there… but sure he couldn’t be… and it’s really starting to freak me out. By the time I’m at the store picking up milk after school, I’ve started talking to myself under my breath.

“Okay, so yeah. That was worrying,” I mutter as I open up the fridge at the back of the store and pull out two cartons of milk. “That was very worrying. But you’re okay, right Jocelyn? Yeah. I’m okay. I know what’s real.” I stand and squeeze the cold handles of the milk cartons until my hands hurt. “ _I know what’s real_.” That’s when I notice another customer giving me a strange look and hurry to the checkout.

The two gallons of milk are tough to carry with my fifty-pound backpack already doing its best to break my shoulders, but fortunately Mom’s house isn’t as far as Dad’s. It’s actually just down the hill from Westchester High, and the trip to the store only takes me two blocks out of the way.

“Hi, Jocelyn!” Gabby chirps when I lurch into the kitchen.

“Hi, Gabby.” I say, setting down the milk and starting to slide my backpack off my shoulders. “How was—”

But I stop short when I see her… or rather, what she is holding. Settled smugly in my sister’s arms, purring away, is a black cat with white paws and piercing green eyes.

“ _You!_ ” I exclaim as my backpack thuds to the floor.

“Uh… yeah,” Gabby says with that annoying little ‘ _duh_ ’ look she likes to give me. “I’m your sister. I’m here all the time.”

“No, not you. That—him,” I pointed to the rumbling ball of fur in her arms. “That cat…”

“Isn’t he cute?” Gabby hooks an arm around the cat’s neck and pulls him up to nuzzle her nose into the top of his head.

“Why is he in the house?” I demand.

“Settle down, Jocelyn,” Mom says sweeping into the kitchen to squeeze me into a big hug. “I told her she could.” She presses a loud kiss into my temple, but I still haven’t taken my eyes off the cat, who is holding my gaze quite serenely.

“Okay, but why?” I ask. Mom’s always been the lenient parent, but letting Gabby bring random stray animals into the house is a stretch even for her.

“He’s hurt,” Gabby croons, stroking the cat tenderly.

“What do you mean?” He looks fine to me.

“Some guy ran over him with his bike coming down the hill.”

“Oh—oh my god, really?”

“Yeah. It was actually a really a terrible crash,” Mom says. “Gabby saw it happen just as we were pulling into the driveway.”

“The cat was just sitting in the road and the guy ran into him— _smash!_ ” Gabby slams the palms of her hands together for emphasis. “And he—the guy—just went _flying._ There was something wrong with his bike. I think the brakes weren’t working.”

I feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Wait… w-wait a second… was the bike red?”

“Yeah,” Gabby says.

“And the guy—what did he look like?”

“Hispanic,” Mom says. “About your age. _Lots_ of hair gel.”

Oh my god. I feel my heart drop. _Alejo._

“Why? Is he a friend of yours?”

“No. No, but… what happened to him?” I can feel my heart beginning to thud against my chest in apprehension. “Is he okay?”

“Well they took him away in an ambulance,”— _oh God—_ “but they said his life wasn’t in danger. I think he just had a couple broken bones.”

“Okay,” I exhale. _Oh, thank god._ A couple broken bones, I can deal with. As long as he’s not dead… But his _brakes were out._ Does that mean… does that mean I _didn’t_ hallucinate the guy by the bike racks? It has to. He has to have actually been there, but… but then how did he disappear from right in front of my eyes like that?

“A-and what about him?” I ask, gesturing at the cat. “Is he okay?” He seems awfully content for an animal that’s just had two hundred pounds of high school dumbass run over him.

“I think his paw is broken,” Gabby says. “But Mom says we can take him to the vet tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? What makes you think he’ll be around until tomorrow?”

“Mom said we can keep him!” Gabby beams.

“She what?” I look at my mother in disbelief. “You _what?_ ” Mom can’t just tell Gabby she can keep stray cats she finds on the street! What does she think she’s doing? “You _know_ we can’t keep him,” I protest. “Dad’s allergic to cats.”

“What I said was ‘for now,’” Mom says with a patient smile. “He can stay for now. I’ll just wash all your clothes really well before next week.”

“I’m going to call him Muffin!” Gabby exclaims happily.

“Let’s not call him anything,” I say. “He probably has an owner.”

“Well, he’s not wearing a collar,” Gabby says, “and I didn’t see any missing cat signs.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong to someone,” I say.

“You’re mean!” Gabby pouts.

“I’m not mean. I’m trying to be practical,” I say, but I already know I’ve lost. Gabby always gets her way at Mom’s house… and, stalker or not, the cat is actually really cute.

“We don’t need her, do we Muffin?” Gabby baby-talks to the cat cuddled in her lap. “No we don’t. _No, we don’t._ ”

He curls up against my sister and purrs, but those unnerving eyes of his don’t leave mine.

“So… what did you want to talk about?” Mom asks because she knows that I never come into her studio unless there’s something serious I need to talk about. Most times, it’s the only place I can corner her for more than five minutes.

When I was little—really little—I loved to just sit and watch her paint for the fun of it and hope she would give me some paints to play with on a piece of paper. Back then, I wanted to grow up to be an artist just like my Mom. That was before I got older and started to hate the stickiness and shapeless mush of paint. I still love art as much as I always did, but I can only bear to work in pencil. I need clear, straight lines that I can put exactly where I want them. I need to be able to erase if I screw something up.

When I was younger, I loved Mom’s paintings; trees and faces painted in all the wrong colors that somehow came out looking just right. It was later that the seemingly carless way she swept her arm across the canvas started to annoy me. It was just so… _messy._ Art isn’t supposed be messy. Art—real art—should be perfect, shouldn’t it? It should be an exact recreation of what the artist sees in her mind. That’s why I work in tiny detail with a sharpened pencil. I’m not one for expressing ideas in bold shapes and loud, sweeping colors; I draw flawlessly accurate fanart that’s only stylized or divergent from the source material exactly where I want it to be. That’s the art that I find beautiful. Mom always tells me I would have more fun drawing my own creations, but I never have ideas for original characters… at least not ideas that are very good. No, for years now, my drawings have all been fanart and I’ve barely set foot in Mom’s studio.

But I need to talk to her. There’s no avoiding it.

“It’s just… I’ve been looking at colleges that might be good for me.”

“Mm-hmm,” she says in her only-half-listening voice. How is it that she can babble about texture and composition for hours, but when it comes to her daughter’s future, she can’t even be bothered with a little genuine interest?

“So, I think I might go into accounting… y-you know, like Dad? I mean, I know it’s not the most exciting thing to study, but I’m so good with numbers… and I’ll be able to make money when I get out of school, right? Right, Mom?”

“And what about your soul?” Mom asks, brushing back her hair and inadvertently smudging paint across her forehead in the process. “You think a job in _accounting_ is really going to make you happy? What about all that creative energy inside you? Your drawing? Your writing? Don’t you want to explore all the cool shit you can do with those?”

“I-I do…” I say. “I just… I mean, Dad’s always saying, I need to think about supporting myself and a family in the future. And I _want_ to be able to do that. I want to be successful, like…” _like Dad,_ I want to say, but stop myself, because Mom tends to get annoyed when I let on just how much I _do_ admire my father and all he’s been able to accomplish… “I just want to make the right decisions,” I say finally.

“Jocelyn.” Mom lowers her brush, turning to look at me for the first time, her smile fond and earnest, if a touch exasperated. “You’re only eighteen. Go to a nice, small liberal arts college somewhere, explore your skills, and just take the time to be free and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life… like I did.” She grins and returns to her painting.

“Mom… it’s not like I _don’t like_ working with numbers.”

“But it’s not what makes you _happy,_ ” Mom says. “You are an _artist,_ Jocelyn. You’ve always been happiest when you’re _creating_.” She isn’t wrong.

“Yes, but I’m trying to think about where that can take me. I mean, I like drawing and writing, but I don’t want to end up…” _like you… alone, with no money, in a hideously messy, tiny house, completely cut off from the rest of the world._ “I don’t want to end up on the street, with no job.”

Mom just smiles. “Some of the best art in the world happens on the streets. Wouldn’t you rather be part of that than spend your entire life struggling through the ranks of a boring  number-crunching job with no meaning at all?” Well… when she put it that way… “Whatever your father says, you _don’t_ want to do that to yourself.”

“But… I—”

“Jocelyn, honey, you don’t belong in some big hyper-competitive school that’ll crush your spirit. You belong somewhere that’ll give you room to grow.”

My mother is probably what most kids would describe as ‘the coolest mom in the world.’ She lets me eat what I want, do what I want, and go out whenever I want, but she always has time to talk if I feel like being with her. Hell, she even listens to a lot of my fandom rants without complaint and I’ve never heard of any parent with that kind of patience. It’s just that sometimes I wish she would be more than a friend. I wish she would be… a _mom_. Somewhere between my overbearing father and my flake of a mother, there’s a really fantastic parent; I just can never find the one I’m looking for when I really need it.

Back in my room, I flop down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. There is a dark slither of movement and I realize that the cat has leapt up onto the windowsill opposite my bed. He must have slipped in at some point while I wasn’t paying attention. Now he just perches there and watches me, perfectly still but poised as though waiting for something to happen.

“What do I do, Muffin?” I ask and my voice comes out in a strained whimper. “Mom’s not wrong. Neither of them are wrong. They both know me… I just don’t know who’s _right_.” I feel tears rising up in my eyes and don’t bother trying to swallow them back. “Either way, I’m going to disappoint _someone._ ”The tears well up over the edge and spill from my eyes to trickle into the hair above my ears. “What am I supposed to do?”

But he can’t answer me. He’s a cat.

My parents, opposite as they are in pretty much everything else, have always had one plan for me and Gabby; put us through high school, get us to the best colleges possible. But now, here I am at the end of high school—right at the end of the path they’ve set out for me all these years—and suddenly they couldn’t be more divided. This is the first time the path has split between the two people who have always guided me forward and I don’t know which branch to take. The cat just perches there and stares as the tears keep coming. I just need someone… _someone_ to tell me what to tell me where to go from here. Where is the path? What do I do? What do I do? _What do I do?_

Turning onto my stomach, I pull my laptop toward me. For a while I just stare at my blog homepage as though it can somehow tell me what I am… what I need to do.

 

_**The Purple Magpie** _

_18\. Straight-A student by day, your fanfiction god by night. Writer. Feminist. Half Mexican. Half White. Catholic? Bisexual… I think? Who knows? Who knows anything?_

_This is a multifandom blog. LOTR. HP. Star Trek. Star Wars. Game of Thrones. All things Marvel. All things DC. Greek & Norse mythology. Occasional Shakespeare. Basically anything with glorious action, an interesting universe, and pretty, pretty characters._

 

But seriously, even my slightly more confident online self isn’t giving me anything right now.

 

**_Random likes:_ **

_Writing_

_Candy_

_Fun socks_

_Birdwatching_

**_Random dislikes:_ **

_Spiders_

_Deep water_

_The New 52_

_Young adult paranormal romance novels_

_Cheap erasers_

 

I add ‘Contemplating the future’to my list of dislikes after ‘Cheap erasers’to see if it makes me feel better. It doesn’t.

I go to the half-finished fanfiction chapter I’ve been working on and stare at the last paragraph I wrote. It’s not very good. In fact, it’s pretty much crap. I needed an excuse for a character to do something so I wrote it into his destiny as foretold by the Norns. Destiny… prophecy… Chosen Ones… the cheapest of plot devices, but so _useful_ —almost irresistibly so—when trying to drive a story forward. I wish _I_ had a destiny… a clear direction set out for me. So I could just blaze on ahead and know I’m going the right way. At this point, I think I would even take a crappy destiny with lots of suffering and death… at least I would know what was coming and what to do. What I wouldn’t give to just _know_ …

But real life is never that neat, is it?

The Word document closes with a dejected click and I’m back at my blog, staring at a blank text post box. My fingers find the keyboard.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 8:28 PM, Today,_

_Help..._

 

I don’t often bring up my personal life on my blog. It’s usually a comfort that I can keep that whole mess separate from my online life. But I’m so desperate now that it all comes pouring in a mad skitter of fingers over my keyboard, all my insecurities, and indecision, and fear, things I normally wouldn’t let out as The Purple Magpie, but I’m so scared. I’m so lonely. I want one touch of sympathy from someone, somewhere… someone…

 

_PrincessKanna , 8:39 PM, Today,_

_I’m sorry to hear your having a hard time. If I knew anything about applying to colleges, I’d try to help you out, but I haven’t had to do that yet. Hang in there, Magpie._

 

_JaimieSparrow , 8:42 PM, Today,_

_I know what u mean. I’m applying to colleges too and I’m super nervous. I think I might want to take a year off if my parents will let me stay at home. But I feel you. Growing up sucks._

_DreamCatcherInTheRye , 8:44 PM, Today,_

_Sounds like you’re facing a pretty tough choice. For me, it was a no-brainer that I wanted to go to a small liberal arts school, but choosing which one was still really stressful. I can tell you that liberal arts can be awesome, especially if you’re not sure what you want to do with your education yet. It’s been really great helping me figure out my skills and passions. But if you decide you really like math or business or whatever better, you should totally go for it. Only you can decide._

 

_V4Vector , 8:49 PM, Today,_

_I might be slightly biased, but I have to side with your dad. We all know you as a great fanfic writer and artist, but I’ve had enough conversations with you to know you really know your stuff when it comes to math and science and I say it’s always better to aim high (just as long as you don’t stop updating your fics). Anyway, whatever school you choose, I’m sure you’ll do great. Best of luck!_

_TwilightDiscordia , 8:55 PM, Today,_

_No! Magpie, no! Why all this negativity about yourself? You’re such an amazing person and you make such amazing things! Any college (no matter what kind) would be crazy not to accept you! You just have to tell them all how great you are._

_Stay beautiful._

 

_SonicTheScrewdriver , 8:56 PM, Today,_

_Sorry you’re feeling so down, buddy. I feel bad I don’t have any advice, but here, have a gifset of this baby monkey eating a peach._

CaptainQ is next to respond to my online panic attack and I immediately regret posting something so childish and pathetic. She’s so cool; I want her to like me.

 

_CaptainQ , 9:04 PM Today,_

_Hey, hey, where’s all this self-doubt coming from? You shouldn’t need me or anyone else to tell you how intelligent you are. Anyone can tell that by reading one paragraph of anything you’ve written. Lots of people have a hard time picking a college. That doesn’t make them idiots._

_Look, worst-case scenario, you make the wrong choice. Then, guess what? You can still change majors or even schools. Lots of people don’t know what they want to do right out of high school (ahem, yours truly). You’re an intelligent, creative kid. It might take some time to get there, but you’ll be fine in the end. I know you will._

 

She makes it sound so easy. It probably _was_ for her; she always knew her skills. But I _can’t_ make the wrong choice. I just can’t. I’ve lived my whole life on this one-way track; I don’t know what will happen if I veer off in the wrong direction. Besides, I’m already so socially awkward, I really need my first year of college to go smoothly.

 

_Your mom and dad can’t choose your school for you. That’s something you’re going to have to do yourself. And if that means just winging it on a feeling, that’s what you’ve got to do. Decisions are probably the scariest thing about growing up, but you’re so smart and sensible; I would trust your judgment if the whole world hung in the balance. You just have to trust it too. I know these things all seem terrifying now, but they won’t always. I promise. Hang in there, Magpie._

_Live long and prosper. <3_

 

At first I’m so embarrassed that the great CaptainQ not only saw—but _responded_ to—my attack of insecurity that I bury my head in my arms for a good five minutes with my face burning and a muffled stream of “ _stupid, stupid, stupid_ ,” issuing from my mouth.

But, as the night goes on and I settle down to work on my fanfiction, I find myself going back and rereading her message again… and again… and again.


	5. Muffin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at our Muffin-centric chapter. Hope you guys like cats!
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

" _realistically the space under my bed is very small so if a monster did in fact live there it would have to also be very small_  
_it would be some kind of baby monster_  
_i would have to look after it"_

—dajo42.tumblr.com

 

I can drive. I learned when I was sixteen along with most of the kids in my grade, I just don’t like to. There’s something about being responsible for the movement of something so much bigger, and heavier, and _more dangerous_ than myself… it just makes me too nervous.

“Please, Mom?” I ask, pressing the phone to my ear probably a little harder than I need to. “ _Please_?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll drive,” she sighs after a pause.

“And you’ll have time?” I ask.

“I should be able to make it home by two. Just get the cat into the carrier thingy before I get there, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Honey.”

“Bye.”

That’s the great—and actually kind of not so great— thing about my mother. She never actually makes me do anything I don’t want to, even if it’s something as simple as getting the stupid cat to the vet. It’s Dad who pushes me to drive whenever I can and get out on the highways, saying that I’ll never get better if I don’t practice.

With Mom at her art show and Gabby at gymnastics, I’m alone in the house. Just me and the cat. The cat lies on the arm of the couch now, on his back with his white paws curled above him, twisted around to stare at me upside down as I scroll down my dash. All I really want to do today is sit and work on my fanfiction, but I figure I should do some laundry and then see if I actually _can_ get the dumb cat into the carrier we bought for him.

So far, he hasn’t been the most cooperative pet… in fact, he’s been downright monstrous if you ask me. Within just one day in Mom’s house, he’s sharpened his claws on the kitchen table, made a hash of the living room curtains, and nearly knocked _my laptop_ off my desk. I’m not even sure how he did it all on a broken paw, but he did.

I watch as the horrible feline twists the front and then the back half of his body around, flows to his little white feet, and limps into the kitchen, probably to cause some new disaster. I’ve never seen anyone, animal or human, make a limp look graceful or smug, but somehow this cat does both. I haven’t even tried to pet him or pick him up yet and I’m not sure I want to. He seems to get along great with Gabby, but the way he looks at me… that arrogant stare… Oh my god, what am I talking about? He’s a fucking cat. All I have to do is get him in a little plastic carrier. How hard can that be?

Grudgingly, I stand up and follow the little animal into the kitchen to find him perched beside the sink, seemingly mesmerized by one of the silvery faucet handles.

“Okay, buddy, you don’t want to play there,” I say in my most pleasant voice. “Here, let me get you down.” I reach out to pick him up, but as I move to wrap my arms around him, he slithers right through them. “Whoa!” I have to take a moment to blink and reorient myself after he slides free. I mean, I knew cats could do that, but it’s still weird to feel a warm a body there and then just have my arms close on nothing.

“Okay…” I say as the cat settles again and resumes his pawing at the faucet. “Stay there if you want, I guess. Just don’t blame me if you get a faceful of water.” He ignores me. “So… can I pet you?” I ask. “I’m going to pet you, okay?”

I reach out a tentative hand and put it on his head. He doesn’t seem to object, so I go ahead and run it down his back. So _soft!_ No one ever told me cats were this soft. I mean, they always looked fluffy and nice in the pictures, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like the warm sleekness beneath my fingers now. The cat stops pawing at the faucet and his eyes close. Then he is leaning up into my hand, his delicate form pressed up against my touch as a soft rumble starts up somewhere inside him. A purr.

Just as I’m thinking I could just stand there and pet the little monstrosity all day, his eyes open and he pulls away from my hand. Is it possible for a cat to look sad? Because I swear he does for a flicker of a second before turning and slinking away across the counter.

“Okay… so are we friends now?” I ask.

He turns to look at me for a moment and then limps out of the kitchen. I still have no idea how I’m supposed to get him into the dumb kitty carrier, but then I remember that I have an army of experts at my disposal.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 9:30 AM Today_

_Okay, so guys, I know a lot of you have cats. How do I get one into a pet carrier?_

_PrincessKanna , 9:35 AM Today_

_Aww! You got a kitty? omg that’s awesome! Okay, here’s what u do: u want to make sure she/he’ll be comfortable, so line the carrier with newspapers and/or blankets and put treats inside. Then u just try to coax him/her inside. Don’t forget to be gentle!_

 

Okay. Not a bad idea. And Princess Kanna has lots of cats; she’s always posting pictures of them; she must know what she’s talking about.

After running to the store and picking up a random assortment of cat treats, I take some newspapers and a paint-stained sheet from Mom’s studio and get the inside of the pet carrier all ready just like Princess Kanna instructed. I find the cat in the hallway and move toward him slowly with the carrier. He just sits there and watches me until I have nudged the carrier right up in front of him. But when I reach out for him, he prances back on his three working paws, and then bolts, back down the hall into the kitchen. I try several more times, to the same effect. Even when I try tempting him in by holding out one of the treats, he won’t do more than hover just beyond arms-reach, only to dart away as soon as I try to get ahold of him.

 

_Kyprioth , 9:52 AM Today_

_OMG! u got a cat? That’s so cool! I wish my mom would let me get a cat! What’s its name?_

_ThePurpleMagpie , 10:00 AM Today_

_That’s still in contention. My sister wants to call him Muffin._

_Kyprioth , 10:06 AM Today_

_Aww! That’s super cute! but what does ‘contention’ mean??? :(_

_TTRaven , 10:01 AM Today_

_Aww! Hey, I had a cat called Snickers when I was little. As for getting the little guy into a carrier, you’re going to want to get the carrier as close to him as you can without him noticing…_

 

I creep into the living room as quietly as I can. The cat doesn’t seem to notice me. Encouraged, I crouch down and set the carrier down by the couch…

 

_… then just pick him up and carry him over to it, preferably without letting him see where you’re taking him, then put him in backwards and shut the door._

 

“Okay, okay…” I mutter to myself and wrap my arms around the cat. He doesn’t seem to object, so I lift him up off the couch and start to back up. He doesn’t resist as I sink to my knees beside the carrier and try to maneuver him so that I can get him into it without him seeing. Biting my lip, I ease him down and backwards… almost there…

Then at the last second he turns his head and the situation seems to register. Twisting his slippery little body around in my arms, he pushes off my chest, springing away to freedom while I fall backwards against the couch.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 10:32 AM Today_

_Okay, guys, he’s clearly on to me. I’ve tried the whole sneaking him in backwards thing five times now. He’s not having it._

_Kitsune-cutie , 10:34 AM Today_

_As a red-tailed fox spirit myself, I don’t know much about cats, but a friendly reminder to use gender neutral pronouns when referring to animals as they cant speak meaning they cant express theyre preferred gender identy. uwu_

_LMaximo , 10:40 AM Today_

_Alright, clearly you’ve got a tricky one on your hands. And when you have a tricky cat, the only thing to do is outsmart him. Maybe wait a little bit, put a trail of treats up to the door of the carrier and then quick push him in when he gets close enough. Or you could try to chase him into it somehow. I did that once with my cat. You gotta get creative._

 

“Oh, kitty, _look_!” I say in the sweetest, most exited voice I can muster. “What’s this?” I gesture at the trail I’ve made. “Kitty treats! You want treats, don’t you?”

He gives a long look only be described as indignant, as if to say ‘ _are you serious?’_ and moves on, with an imperious toss of his head. A cat should be able to make me feel stupid. And yet I feel like the biggest idiot in the world as his tail flicks disdainfully around the corner and out of sight.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 11:58 AM Today_

_It’s not working. Nothing I try is working. I don’t think I’m smart enough._

_PrincessKanna , 12:01 PM Today_

_Hey, just hang in there, Magpie. Be patient. It’ll work out._

_Icememesicle , 12:21 PM Today_

_You could blindfold him with something. That usually calms them down._

 

I find the cat sitting on the shelf in my mom’s studio, a small shadowy shape among bottles and bottles of brightly colored paint.

“Alright, alright, kitty.” I approach slowly, twisting the cloth nervously between my hands and trying to ignore the smarting of the last few scratches. He doesn’t move away, but he huffily refuses to look at me even though he clearly hears me. “I know you’re mad.” I reach out to him. “I’m just going to do this…”

He lets me touch his head and then run a hand down his back. _Good, good_. Slowly, slowly, I bring the cloth up to his face and put it over his eyes. My teeth sink into my lower lip as I start to tie it off. _Under, and then over… and under again, and pull… and done!_

“Okay,” I step back. Now he won’t be able to see the carrier as I try to get him into it. All I need to do is gather him up and— “ _Ahh_!”

I dodge out of the way just as the cat kicks a bottle of paint off the shelf. It flies past me and bursts open against one of Mom’s brand new canvases, drenching the top half in red before falling to splatter all over the floor. For a moment, I can only clutch my hair and suck in a long, horrified gasp. _No, no, no, no,_ no _!Mom’s going to kill me!_

 _“YOU!”_ I whirl around to start venting my frustration at the stupid little animal, but he’s already gone.

When I go to the kitchen to get some rags from the cupboard under the kitchen sink to clean up the disaster area, I find the cloth I tied around his head draped over the faucet. So much for the blindfold idea.

 

_Icememesicle , 12:45 PM Today_

_He got the blindfold off? How’d he even do that?_

_LMaximo , 12:48 PM Today_

_Dude, try wrapping him up in a towel. That’s what I always do._

_ThePurpleMagpie , 12:50 PM Today_

_I can try, but I doubt my ability to catch him if he sees me coming._

_LMaximo , 12:59 PM Today_

_That’s why you’ve got to use bait._

_Kyprioth , 1:01 PM Today_

_Yeah! You could put some treats on a towel and then when he goes to eat them, you can really quick wrap him up in it!_

_LMaximo , 1:03 PM Today_

_That’s what I’m talking about. The cat treat trap. It’s foolproof._

 

Getting up from my laptop, I gather up the kitty treats I tried to use earlier to lead the cat to the carrier and put them in a little pile on top of an old towel in the middle of the living room. He limps along the edge of the towel, idly looking at the treats, seems to decide he’s not interested, and moves away into the kitchen. Grabbing another towel, I follow him and set up another pile of treats only to look up and find that he’s left again. Pretty soon there’s a little cat trap sitting in every room on the first floor, but he doesn’t seem remotely interested in any of them. Either he’s the only cat in the world who doesn’t like treats or he’s the only cat in the world smart enough to see through LMaximo’s foolproof trap.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 1:18 PM Today_

_Tried the towel and cat treat thing… five times. He’s totally not taking the bait._

_Icememesicle , 1:21 PM Today_

_Just grab him. You’ve just got to grab him and shove him in._

_“Okay, you little monster, you’re going in whether you like it or not! No. Don’t hiss at me, you— Ahh! Son of a—”_

_I’ve never been clawed by a cat before. It stings a lot more than I was expecting._

_ThePurpleMagpie , 1:36 PM Today_

_And now I’m bleeding._

 

“Okay, I’m done playing around,” I growl, shutting the door of my room. Now it’s just me, the carrier, and the cat. I have to dive after him again and again, tripping over unfolded clothes, banging my shins and elbows on every piece of furniture in the room until I finally get my arms around the writhing animal, only to have him tear a new set of clawmarks into me and spring free.

The process repeats I don’t know how many times until I’m left lying on the floor, exhausted and close to tears.

“Fine, you win,” I whimper. “Is that what you wanted to hear, you little fuck? We won’t go to the vet. Hell, maybe I’ll just let you back out on the street right now. Is that what you want? Because, I’m telling you right now, I won’t miss you.”

Eventually, I find the willpower to sit up, but everything stings so much, I change my mind and flop over to put my head in my arms on top of the empty kitty carrier.

“I hate this day.”

I’ve hardly gotten any fanfic written this week and now my Saturday is half gone all because of a stupid cat who couldn’t get out of the way of an idiot on a bike. And that’s to say nothing of the college application stuff I was supposed to look at. Oh God, _college._ I feel the tears starting—but no, _fuck_ no! I don’t want to cry because of _this_. A cat can’t make me cry! So, I just lie there and take long, slow breaths. In and out, and in and out… It takes a long time, but I’ve finally cooled to the point that I at least don’t feel like sobbing anymore. That’s something. _It’s going to be fine_ , I tell myself. _Everything’s going to be fine… probably… maybe._ Oh God, what is my life? What kind of almost-grown-up has and almost-mental-breakdown because of an uncooperative house pet? What the fuck is wrong with me?

That’s when I realize that the carrier has gotten strangely warm beneath my arms… and started… _purring?_ Lifting my head in surprise, I look around the room to find that the cat is nowhere in sight. _He didn’t…_ I lean over to look inside the plastic box to find him curled up inside, purring contentedly. _That son of a bitch!_ I’m not sure if I want to laugh or scream with rage. I settle for just slamming the carrier door shut and leaning down to give the smug animal a good hard scowl through the bars.

“You’re evil, you know that?”

Just then, I hear the front door open in the kitchen.

“Hey, Jocelyn!” Mom’s voice calls. “I’m home! You ready to go?”

I let out an exasperated groan and let my head thunk forward onto the pet carrier.

“Jocelyn?”

“Yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

“ _Yes_.” I grumble, standing up. “Let’s just go.”

I sit in the passenger seat while my mom drives. The prisoner has been remarkably quiet so far, closed up in the back seat in the pet carrier. Surprising—and a little annoying—considering the four fucking hours it took to get him into it.

 “I think he’s cute,” Mom says.

“You think it’s _cute_ that he trashed a seventy-dollar canvas?”

“It’s not the end of the world,” Mom smiles. “I’ll find a way to work with it.” Calm. Always so calm about everything. How does she do it? It’s not fair. “Have we settled a name for the little guy?”

“Gabby has her heart set on ‘Muffin,’” I say, scrunching my nose.

“And what do you think?”

“I think, as far as common, cutesy cat names go, ‘Trouble’ might suit him better… or _‘Catastrophe.’_ ”

“Oh, Jocelyn, you’re such a drama queen,” Mom laughs. “It was just a bit of paint.”

“And the table, and the curtains… and Dad’s cat allergies. He might be cute,”—really, _really_ cute—“but he _is_ trouble.”

Just then a warm black shadow slips in between us and I turn with a start to see ‘Muffin’ at my elbow.

“Oh, son of a—! H-how did you even—” I twist around to look at the cheap pet carrier, which is still seat-belted in right where we left it with the door swinging open. It doesn’t look like any part of it has broken. He just seems to have undone the lock somehow. “ _What_?” I’m just about ready to start hyperventilating. “He’s not supposed to be able to do that, is he? He’s not supposed to be able to do that!”

“Jocelyn,” Mom says. “Calm.”

“I _am_ calm! I swear, he’s the devil! He keeps screwing around with me and it’s not funny!”

The cat just meows innocently and slithers down into my lap to curl up there as Mom chuckles. My first impulse is to scream my anger and pitch him right off of me, but he’s so warm and fuzzy that I grudgingly let him stay there for the rest of the ride. I haven’t forgiven him enough to pet him, but I do let him stay.

“Alright, here we are,” Mom says, pulling up in front of the vet’s. “Now, let’s get him back in that carrier. I’ve got five minutes before I’m late to pick up Gabby.”

“Yeah.” I huff. “Somehow I think it’s going to take a little longer than five minutes to—” but I stop short as the cat bounds off my lap and, when I turn around, he is settled smugly back into the kitty carrier. “Okay, see what I mean?” I say, biting back a swell of frustrated hysteria. “He’s just messing with me!”

“Whatever you say, honey,” Mom says, patting my knee. “Whatever you say.”

“I’m serious, I—fine,” I snap. “Fine, just—whatever.”

It’s probably not something to be proud of that as a high school senior, I’m still small enough to clamber from the front seat of my mom’s crappy little car to the back, but I squirm back there as fast as I can to slam the carrier shut before _Muffin_ can decide to start another round of catch the cat.

“And this time you won’t get out,” I insist, grabbing a loose length of the wire Mom uses for art things from the trunk.

I wind the wire around and around the bars where the door latches shut and twist the ends together so he can’t possibly get out. Not without opposable thumbs anyway. From the dark inside the carrier, the cat levels a glinting stare at me and, as usual, I can’t help but feel that he’s laughing at me.

Never having had a pet, I’ve never been to the vet’s before. Going into new places—or actually any place there are people—always makes me cripplingly, irrationally nervous. But I already had Mom drive; I can’t ask her to come in with me. So I just shuffle up to the front desk with my heart pounding in my throat and awkwardly mumble that we called yesterday about a cat with a broken foot.

“Yes.” The woman behind the desk smiles patiently at me with her nice hair and clear skin and I feel even more pathetic. Why do some people have such perfect teeth? How do they even— “If you’ll just have a seat, someone will be with you shortly.”

“Right.” I let out my anxious smile-laugh that I hate. “Thank—thank you. Thanks.”

I take the kitty carrier and sit down in a seat at the far end of the waiting room, as far away from any of the other people as possible. This happens to be in the kids’ section, with the fish tank and the table full of funny, loopy toys, but as long as I don’t have to talk to anyone or hide behind a boring magazine to avoid awkward eye contact, I don’t really care.

“Now you have to be nice, understand?” I mutter to the cat, rubbing my thumb back and forth over one of the many Band-aids on my arm. “I know you like scratching me, but please don’t scratch the vet.”

He is silent inside the carrier. Of course he is. He’s a cat. I don’t know why I keep talking to him like I expect a response. I’ve got to stop that.

The only other people sitting in this section of the waiting room are two little kids playing with their Transformers toys on the floor, and an eight-or-nine-year-old-looking boy—the big brother, I’m guessing—sitting nearby with his mom. He’s clearly been crying and he keeps sniffing like he might start up again any time.

“Ajax is going to be fine, honey,” his mom says, putting an arm around him.

“When can we see him?” the boy asks.

“It shouldn’t be long.”

“I want to see him now.”

“The vet said not too many people in the room, remember? We want him to be calm. But Daddy’s with him. He’s going to be okay.”

“He seemed really sick,” the boy says, wiping his eyes and nose on his sleeve.

“He’s an old dog, sweetheart. This happens.”

He sniffs. “I just want him to get better.”

The mom continues to murmur reassurances to the boy as my attention turns to the two younger brothers playing on the floor, seemingly oblivious to the heavy atmosphere around them. Maybe they’re too little to understand what’s going on… or maybe they would just rather not think about it.

They’re using the pattern on the carpet as a landscape… like Gabby and I used to with our plastic dinosaurs. God, that was a long time ago.

“Now we have to cross without anyone falling in the rust lava,” the older one says. “Careful! Don’t fall in the lava!”

“No! I’m slipping! Nooo! _Pshhhcchooookhahhh!_ No! My legs are melted off!”

“No, Ben! I’ll save you!”

“You’re not big enough to lift me! You have to use the super-thrusters!”

“But we don’t have enough fuel!”

I know what it’s like to be there on the floor, with the world so big, but so inconsequential all around me, entirely lost in the world of the pretend.

There was a time I could turn any bookcase into a towering castle, any random object into an otherworldly monster, any room into a stage for thrilling dramas of heart-wrenching conflict and great feats of heroism. I remember what it feels like… I just can’t feel it anymore. A long time ago, the pattern on the carpet would have stirred my imagination too. Now it’s just something to stare at, numbly, as I wait for the day—for my life—to move on in the real world.

 “Quick, we have to get back and destroy the base before they can fuel up again!”

“ _Pyew, pyew!_ Take that, space snakes!” The boys shout, dancing as they fly their transformers around the toy table. “ _Pchooo!_ ”

“Ben, Ryan, inside voices,” their mom reminds them gently and they go on in whispers.

“Okay, they’re dead now. Let’s go home now and give the fuel to the others. _Whoosh! Fly, fly, fly!_ ”

As they race past me, I think I would give anything to be their age again. Just rewind back to when everything was simple and alive… back when my mind was free like theirs, free to be whatever it wanted, free to flit in between reality and fiction, to dive headfirst and disappear into a different world when the real one wasn’t to my liking. Fiction is still my favorite place to hide. But as I’ve grown older and the excitement has ebbed away, it’s gotten harder and harder to drown out the real world. Until I can’t drown it out any more. Because it’s too close to ignore now, racing up to get me and I have to be ready… I have to be ready…

“Oh no!” one of the boys exclaims, still careful to use his inside voice. “Our planet’s been destroyed!”

“What do we do now?”

“We have to—”

But just then, there is a very real crash from somewhere in the clinic and the two boys start, pulled from the world of their game. I can hear muffled voices and then a torrent of agitated barking, followed by a spectacular cacophony that sounds like a whole lot of equipment and at least one human falling to the floor.

“No, it’s a cat!” A voice shouts as a dog starts barking madly.

“Right there—no—get it! _Get it_!”

That’s when my eyes fall on the cat carrier. The wire I twisted around the latch lies in an unraveled mess a few feet away and the door is swinging open. Oh, you’re fucking kidding me!

I’ve just gotten up from my seat when a little streak of pure darkness comes zipping around the corner into the waiting room. In a moment the cat from hell has darted over to take refuge behind my legs.

“ _What did you do_?” I hiss.

He just lets out an innocent, wide-eyed mew and curls his tail around my legs.

There are more shouts, the barking gets louder and a great big husky scrambles clumsily around the corner and makes for the cat hiding behind me. However he doesn’t get very far before an excited onslaught of affection rushes to meet him.

“Ajax!” The two little boys have dropped their robots and run to hug the husky around his big fuzzy neck, stopping him before he can go chomping at my knees. Their older brother’s face lights up with disbelieving joy and in a moment, he runs to join them.

“Ajax! You’re _barking_!” He cries as his dad and several vets emerge from the hallway into the waiting room.

“Is that your cat, Miss?” A woman in a white coat asks me with barely suppressed fury sealed up in her voice.

“Yes. I-I mean, no. He- he’s not _mine,_ but I brought him in. We—my sister—found him the other day. He had a broken paw.”

“A _broken paw_?” The woman repeats as though I’ve just said the stupidest thing in the world. “ _That_ cat has a broken paw?”

“Um… yes?”

“I don’t think so, young lady. I don’t need to examine that animal to know his paw is fine.”

“No, but… but that can’t be,” I say, baffled. “I mean, his paw was broken _yesterday_. I saw him… he could barely walk on it. Now you’re saying he’s just… fine?”

“Fine enough jump up on the shelf and knock over half the equipment and then escape down the hall to terrorize that poor dog in the next room,” the woman says tersely.

“Really?” Cats don’t… _bluff,_ do they? Somehow I wouldn’t put it past this one. “I’m—I’m so sorry,” I say, my face burning in embarrassment. “If he broke anything, I can pay—”

“ _Broke anything?_ ” The woman repeats incredulously, “He—” but one of her calmer colleagues steps forward to lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Please,” he sighs, looking at me. “Miss, if you could just take your cat home.”

I swallow and nod before kneeling to pick up the surprisingly unresisting culprit. In fact he clambers right into my arms with a flick of his tail, looking exceedingly pleased with himself. Once I’ve made sure he’s sufficiently clamped to me, I stand up and turn to the dog’s owners.

“Listen, I’m really sorry,” I tell the family earnestly. “I—”

“Are you kidding?” The dad laughs as the husky frisks happily and licks at the boys’ faces. “Ajax hasn’t barked—or _run—_ like that in years! I think that was just the jolt he needed. That’s a little miracle worker you’ve picked up there.”

 

That night after dinner, my hellish little miracle worker perches on the windowsill in my room as I sit down with my laptop.

 

_ThePurpleMagpie , 8:49 PM Today_

_Hey, so guys, I know I don’t know much about cats, but I think this one might be special…_

 

By the end of the weekend, I have two more chapters of _Crossfire_ posted, over a hundred messages of support from my followers, and exactly zero college things done.

“Bye, kitty,” I give the cat a quick pat on the head before leaving my room. For whatever reason, he’s taken up almost permanent residence on my windowsill.

“Bye, Mom,” I say sticking my head into her studio, but I don’t think she hears me; she has her headphones in and I can hear the trebly crash of her music all the way from the where I’m standing.

“Bye, Gabby.” I kiss my sister as I pass through the kitchen.

“Bye, Jocelyn!”

And I’m out the door. It’s gotten colder outside, the air stiff and frigid against my skin. It hasn’t snowed yet, but it’s starting to feel like it’s thinking about it. I consider going back inside for my coat, but it’s barely two blocks to school, so I just pull my hood up over my ears and shove my hands deep into my pockets. As I make my way down the block, I turn on my ipod and begin skipping for a song I like. It’s in the little space between tracks that I hear the whir of bike wheels and the jeer of unwelcome voices.

“Hey! Poncha!”

I hit the pause button, expecting the stupid boys to come pedaling up beside me as usual. Instead, Luis’ green trick bike suddenly veers up inches in front of me, all but knocking me over backwards.

“ _Whoa_!” I jump back, startled out of my usual stubborn silence. “What’s your problem?”

Luis screeches to a halt right across the sidewalk, barring my way. “I think the real question is what’s _your_ problem?”

“E-excuse me?” I guess my blank confusion comes off as indignation because Luis’ expression turns from angry to downright murderous as the rest of the gang pulls up on either side of me.

“Don’t play dumb with us, you bitch!” Luis throws down his bike. “We know it was you!”

“What?”

“ _You_ fucked up Alejo’s brakes! _You_ made him crash!”

“What—no!” I say, feeling panic rise inside me. “I—that wasn’t me!”

“Oh, yeah right,” Luis snarls, stepping closer to me and oh _dear_ he’s tall and… _solid-_ looking. I take a step back, but realize that the rest of the boys have moved their bikes in to close a tight circle around me… and they all look really angry. Well fuck, this isn’t good. If I scream now, I wonder if anyone will hear me…

“We know it was you,” one of the boys says from behind me. “We seen the way you look at him. You’re the only person that coulda done it.”

My mind races for a moment and then of course comes up with the stupidest thing I could possibly say.

“Seriously? I’m the _only person_ who might want to see that bag of dicks hospitalized?” The moment the words leave my mouth, I realize what I’ve done and I feel my eyes go wide. “I-I mean—”

That’s when Luis’ knuckles smash into my mouth. It might not even have been that hard, but he’s so much bigger than I am that the blow sends me staggering as a sharp pain shoots through my lips. An undignified squeak escapes me and I clamp both hands over my mouth as a tingling numbness sets in. He punched me. _He punched me!_ I’m so stunned that I can’t even generate a proper reaction. Through the haze of my own shock, I think I taste blood. Yeah, that’s definitely blood. I can’t believe someone just _punched_ me!

“You think just ‘cause you’re a girl we’re not gonna fuck you up?” Luis growls and it strikes me, in my dizziness, that I never thought I would find myself wishing my douchey Latino classmates were a bit more sexist. “You could’ve _killed_ him!” Suddenly I’m being lifted, hauled up by one of my backpack straps. “Now you’re gonna pay!”

“W-w-w-wait! Wait!” I stutter like an idiot. “ _Mira_ —Luis—Just-just think about this a second. I know that’s not your strong suit, but—just— _think_. Why—I-I mean—how would I even… I don’t know anything about bikes!”

“Shut up!” I see him raise his fist.

 _This can’t be happening to me,_ I think as the fist pulls back for another blow. _This can’t be happening!_

Then something even stranger happens.

 


	6. Enter the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a few things to mention here:
> 
> First, I had to cut this chapter in half because a) it was unreasonably long and b) the second half is an ungodly mess that could really use another week's-worth of editing. So, I'm sorry we don't get through much plot in this chapter. I promise shit will get real in the next one.
> 
> Second, this is where the formatting is going to get confusing. In these chapters to come, italics are used for blog posts, foreign languages (in this case, Spanish), dream sequences, handwriting, and poetry. In the original document, these media are distinguished by the use of different fonts, but I try to make it clear which is which based on context. Please let me know if it's too confusing, as things do get rather trippy from here on out.
> 
> Third, thank you so much for the comments, kudos, and the follows on Tumblr. This story is near to my heart and it means a lot to me that you're enjoying it.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, news, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

_“The first step to any murder is to remember to have fun and be yourself.”  
_ —realmioda.tumblr.com

 

There is a flash of movement and I flinch. But there is no impact. No hideous smack of Luis’ knuckles against my face. Instead, there is only a dull thud as something drops to the ground at my feet.

“Shit!” Luis exclaims and lets go of me like I’m on fire, jumping back from the thing. It seems to be some kind of smoking cardboard tube wrapped in sparkling red paper with a brand name… oh shit, it’s a _firework_! The second the realization hits me, I’m stumbling back too, stopping only when I bump into someone’s handlebars.

“ _Fuck_!” Luis kicks the firework away. “Lucy, what the _hell_?”

I follow his enraged gaze to see an unfamiliar girl with a pair of bouncing black pigtails and flashing eyes that are somehow even darker than the raccoon-like eyeshadow all around them. For a bizarre half a second, she seems to float up alongside us with her armload of colorful fireworks. Then I catch sight of little red wheels under her feet. She’s on roller skates.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Luis demands as the girl spins to a halt at the curb.

“What does it look like, dickhead? I’m returning this garbage.” She scowls, dumping the armload of fireworks on the boulevard at her feet. “You told me these were the best brand.”

“Those _are_ the best brand.”

“Yeah _right_ , you little scam artist,” the girl snaps despite the fact that Luis is a good head taller than she is, even with her skates on. “I’ve tried to light them, like, a hundred times. See?” She picks up a big orange firecracker and brandishes it at him so he can see the burnt tip.

“Dude…” Luis says in disbelief. “You light the _bottom part_ , not the top.”

“The… bottom part?” She repeats blankly.

“Yeah. You know, the little—the what’s it called—the string thingy—”

“The wick,” I say.

“Yeah, that.”

“Oh…” the girl looks at the firework in her hands.

“You knew that, right?”

“I ain’t stupid,” She snarls. “Of _course_ I knew that.” She scratches behind one of her pigtails, looking vaguely distressed “…I knew that, right?”

“ _I told you she was retarded_ ,” one of the boys mutters to another in Spanish.

“ _Why are we letting her hang out with us again_?”

Well… looking her up and down, _I_ can think of a few reasons a bunch of horny teenage boys might want her around… Not that I know what horny boys are into, mind you, I just… she… she _does_ cut quite the figure in those tight little jeans.

“From the bottom…” the girl says, pulling a lighter out of her back pocket. “So, like this?”

“Fuck—not _here_!” One of the boys snatches the firework from her before it gets a chance to touch the flame. “You crazy bitch! You know you can be arrested just for _having_ these?”

“Well, I don’t wanna get all technical on you, but I’m not actually the one _holding_ it right now. That’s you.”

“ _What did you even need all those fireworks for, anyway_?” Luis asks her.

“It’s not important. Now, _this_ business I interrupted looks dramatic.” She grins, skating up to put one fish-net-gloved hand on Luis’ shoulder and one on mine. “What’s going on here? Why are we beating up this white girl?”

“ _S-se-se-_ um…” Luis’ faltering stutter and the sudden color of his face betrays that, despite all his swaggering, he isn’t super used to being this close to girls as pretty as this one… okay, for that matter, neither am I. She is really… _distractingly_ pretty. Like… I didn’t know black lipstick could make a grin gleam like that, or that eyes that dark could _glow_ …

“Well-she-she-she’s the one that did it,” Luis finally gets his sentence together. “She’s the one that set Alejo up to crash.”

“What?” The girl lets out a short laugh. “That wasn’t her.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it was me,” she says cheerfully.

“…What?”

“ _It was ME!_ ” she throws her arms and turns a celebratory spin on her little red wheels. “I pulled his brakes out while the bikes were locked up outside. Thought it would be funny.”

“ _Funny_? He broke three bones!”

“I know, right? Hilarious.”

“He almost died.”

“Yeah, too bad, huh? I was kinda hoping he’d bite it.”

“You _bitch! You fucking bitch!_ You’re _dead_!”

“Probably, yeah.” She shrugs, smoothly sliding her way out of the center of the circle before they get the chance to close ranks around her. “But you’ll have to catch me first!”

I have no idea how she darts around that last biker so fast, but in an instant, she’s shooting off down the hill, faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move on skates.

“Get her!” Luis growls and the jerk squad all scramble to get their feet on their pedals.

“N-no—Luis—wait—” I protest when I realize how much danger this too-pretty, possibly brain-damaged girl will be in if they catch her. “She didn’t—”

“Fuck off, Chavez.” He shoves me away so hard it nearly knocks the wind out of me and then goes pedaling off after the rest. Their shouts ring down the street for a few moments before they fade away, leaving me standing in the silence, surrounded by half-burnt fireworks. I take slow steps backwards until my back touches the fence alongside the sidewalk. For a long moment, all I can do is lean there trying to process what the fuck just happened…

Barely ten steps out the door and I’ve been punched in the mouth, smacked in the head with a sparkly firework, and rescued by a mentally-challenged goth on roller skates. Honestly, this all seems more like something that would happen in a bad crackfic than real life… Maybe it _isn’t_ real life. I close my eyes for a moment, thinking I might open them to find that this is all an anxiety-induced dream. But nope. The throbbing in my lip and the sickly salt taste sticking to my tongue are too sharp to be an illusion. This is real. This is my real life… and I have to deal with the fact that I just got my ass saved by the unholy offspring of Harley Quinn and Ebony Dark’ness Dimentia Raven Way.

Who the hell even _was_ that girl? She seemed to be familiar with Luis and the rest of the jerk squad… that probably means she goes to our school, or at least lives in the area… but, if that’s the case, why don’t I recognize her? I mean, sure, I don’t know everybody at Westchester by name, but I think I would remember someone like her… Maybe she’s somebody’s visiting cousin from out of town??

I push my tongue out to lick the blood off my lip and it stings. The sensation just sort of melts into the general haze of confusion. I can’t stop seeing the girl spinning on her skates and laughing in Luis’ face… why did she do that? Why did she lie about sabotaging Alejo’s bike? I mean, sure, it might be funny to see them confused and angry, but it isn’t worth it. They’ll catch her. She’s on roller skates for fuck’s sake. Why would she take that risk? Did she do it to help me…? Why would she? She doesn’t even _know_ me. Was she just not thinking? … Maybe she really is mentally disabled. Someone who doesn’t know which end of a firework to light—and tries to light one while it’s in her hand—has to have at least few screws loose…

The lip must be swelling pretty badly by the time I reach the crosswalk, because Mike looks at me with surprise and then concern.

“What happened to you?”

“I hit my head… on… a door.”

“You sure?” He asks suspiciously.

“Yeah. Just—it was my fault,” I say and cross quickly before he gets the chance to press me about it.

I reach the school later than usual and have to cram my stuff into my locker quickly before hurrying to English. The morning announcements are just wrapping up when I slide into my desk.

“And don’t forget, voting for the theme for the Midwinter Dance starts tomorrow,” the announcer says. “Your choices for theme are Fairytale, Masquerade, and Winter Wonderland. Don’t forget to stop by the booth in the gymnasium and vote!”

“Did you hear that?” Carla leans across me to ask her friend, Martha. The two of them seem to have decided that Mr. Reynolds’ assigned seats aren’t going to stop them from gossiping through class every day. “Which one are you gonna vote for?”

“Fairytale, obviously,” Martha says. “I like them poufy dresses with the sparkles.”

“Yeah…” Carla says, “but I think I gotta go with the winter one. I got this light blue dress that’s perfect for—oh my god, Jocelyn! What happened to your face?”

“Oh.” I automatically move my hand to cover my split lip. “It’s nothing. It—is it bad?”

“It looks like someone punched you!” Martha exclaims.

“Oh—it’s—no. Th-that’s not what—”

“Alright everyone, let’s wrap up the side conversations,” Mr. Roth says, saving me from having to stumble through some lie. “We’ve got a lot to get through today.”

The coldest thing I can come up with is my calculator, so I press it against my lip, hoping to bring down the swelling. I can’t focus on what Mr. Roth is saying as he starts writing on the board. It isn’t just the insistent throbbing in my mouth. It’s the memory of the terror, and the confusion, and that black lipstick grin that keeps pulsing in my head along with the pain.

“For many of you, your college application essay is the most important essay you will ever write in your life. I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying it because I want each and every one of you to turn out the best college entrance essay you possibly can. So, over the next few weeks, while we continue with our poetry unit, we’re going to take fifteen minutes at the end of each class to work individually on our essays. For a lot of you, deciding what to write about is going to be the hardest part, so we’ll be doing some brainstorming exercises, some small group discussions.”

Mr. Roth hands out a sheet of guidelines on what most colleges are looking to see in an application essay. I try to focus on the words, try to form an idea of what sort of essay I could write to sell my qualities, but the pain has migrated to my teeth and all I can think about is that girl on the roller skates. Where did she come from? Did she get away okay? What _did_ she need all those fireworks for?

Halfway through English class, I take the hall pass and make my way to the girl’s bathroom, thinking that if I can just get my mouth to stop throbbing, I might be able to push the eventful walk to school from my mind. Looking into the long, smudgy mirror above the sinks, I consider the damage. It really isn’t super attractive. The skin is visibly broken open and a purple bruise has bloomed around the spot, swelling half of my lower lip to almost twice its normal size.

“Shit…” I mutter, turning on the faucet. Usually I’m so good at being inconspicuous and completely ignored at school. I don’t know if I’m going to make it through the rest of the day with every other person asking who punched me in the face.

Wetting my hands in the cold water, I splash some over my mouth, hoping it will diminish the swelling. When that doesn’t seem to do much, I take a handful of water, lean over the sink, and hold it to my lip. Once the water has all drained out between my fingers, I scoop up another handful of water and bring it to my mouth. At the very least, the coolness should soothe my mind a little, help me forget the heart-pounding madness of the morning…

But just as I’m trying to erase that weird girl’s face from my memory, suddenly it’s right there, smiling in the mirror just over my shoulder. I gasp in surprise just as I realize that that’s probably a bad idea with a handful of water right up against my lips. Too late. I’ve already inhaled half of it. The droplets catch in my throat, stopping my breath, and in the next moment I’m coughing and wheezing over the sink. My eyes start watering as I gulp, helplessly trying to get some air into my lungs.

“Whoa…” The girl leans in, her dark raccoon eyes wide with what looks more like curiosity than concern. “You gonna be okay, there?”

“Yeah,” I croak, “I’m f—” but I choke again and have to wrench a few more violent coughs from my throat before I’m actually able to breathe properly. After I’ve inhaled deeply once or twice, I gulp down some water from the faucet, just to make sure my lungs are clear.

“Well… that was dramatic.”

“Sorry, I-I was just surprised,” I fumble, feeling my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. “I just—I didn’t realize anyone else was in here.”

“I know,” she says with an amused smile that puts wicked little dimples at the corners of her mouth. “I was seeing how long it would take for you to notice. I didn’t realize you’d try to drown yourself when you did. I mean, I know the eyeliner can be a bit much, but I didn’t think my face was _that_ scary.”

“B-but you—you’re okay,” I say in some surprise. She doesn’t look beat up. No bloody nose or black eyes… though I suppose it would be difficult to tell with that heavy eyeshadow.

“Yeah,” she laughs. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Well-they—you were—I – I thought they might have caught you. I was _worried_.”

“About me? That’s sweet, but they don’t scare me.”

“Why not?” I mean, I don’t care how scrappy she is, someone her size should be afraid of a whole gang of muscular guys.

“Boys that make that much noise ain’t ever got any balls. All you gotta do is look ‘em in the eye and they lose their nerve.”

Granted, I feel like looking this girl in the face could make _anyone_ lose their nerve. I can’t quite put my finger on it… but there’s something slightly deranged in the way she tilts her head and sweetly smiles. I wonder for a moment if those wide eyes and glinting teeth would look quite so insane without the dark makeup to accentuate them… I’m guessing, yes.

She’s shorter without the skates on, barely taller I am, but she holds herself with a flash in her eyes like she could look down on the whole world if she wanted to. Her inky black hoodie is halfway unzipped, dropping down around her arms in a haphazard way that would probably annoy me if I wasn’t distracted by the lacy edge of bra peeking up above her neckline… and the way the ends of her pigtails just brush soft slope of those mocha shoulders.

“We weren’t introduced proper, were we?” She holds out a hand, glinting at the tips with black nail polish. “I’m Lucy.”

“Oh—yeah. I’m Jocelyn Chavez.” I offer an awkward smile as I reach out and shake her hand… she has a surprisingly strong grip. “I-I didn’t realize you went to this school.”

“I do now.”

“So, you’re new here?”

“Mm-hmm. Just transferred last week.”

“What? From a different school?... Why would you change schools so early in the year?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t have much choice.”

“Why?”

“You seem like a nice girl.” She smiles. “So, I’m gonna guess you probably don’t wanna know.”

“Right.” That’s probably true. If the scary makeup, poor grammar, and illegal fireworks are anything to go by, Lucy is exactly the kind of Latina my dad always warned me to say away from… the kind who just reinforces the stereotype that we’re all uneducated, drug-pedaling… wait a second, Lucy _is_ Latina, right? Yeah, I think, considering her accent. She has to be. Appearance-wise, she’s kind of ethnically-ambiguous—with those sharp almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and light brown skin—but she seemed to understand Luis when he spoke Spanish. And she talks like one of the Mexican girls… well… almost like one. There’s something a tiny it off about her accent or… her intonation? Maybe she’s from Guatemala, or Honduras… or some country in South America? Usually, I’m good at telling that kind of thing, but I can’t seem to pin her down…

I realize then that I’ve been standing there for a good few seconds just staring at her… and she’s staring straight back, her arms folded across her soft chest, and a hint of that terrifying smile sharpening the corner of her mouth. Aware that I’ve been caught staring, I expect a ‘what’re you looking at?’ or a ‘something wrong?’ or some mocking comment. But Lucy doesn’t say anything. She just stands there silently, looking straight into my eyes with that horrible half-smile. And I find myself blinking and shrinking away, muttering in embarrassment.

“S-sorry. I was just—I-I’m just going to… yeah.” Turning away from her, I bend down and hastily start applying more cold water to my mouth in an effort to hide the blush that has taken over my stupid pasty face.

“It ain’t gonna _wash off_ , you know,” Lucy says and it takes me a moment to realize she means the cut, not the redness.

“I-I know,” I say, self-consciously touching my tender lip. “I was trying to bring the swelling down, so it… you know… so, it doesn’t draw so much attention.”

“Uh-huh.” The girl rummages around in her bag for a moment and then holds out the biggest freaking makeup case I’ve ever seen. “Concealer?”

“Oh—thanks, but—I don’t think it’ll match.” Surely she’s aware that I’m an embarrassing several shades lighter than she is.

“There’s a few different colors in there,” she says, dumping the makeup case into my dripping hands anyway. “I like to mix them.”

“A-alright… thanks,” I say, opening up the case.

Looking at her, it’s no surprise she carries quite a bit of makeup, but there’s a lot of really random stuff in here too. Mixed in with the lipsticks, and eyeliners, and cases of eye shadow, I find some loose skittles, some loose _pills_ , and oh, a diaphragm—lovely—more eyeliner and, fuck, is that a _switchblade_? You know what, I don’t even want to know. If anyone asks, I didn’t see it.

As I come up with the concealer closest to my skin color and gingerly start to dab it onto the bruise, Lucy hums and takes a lollipop out of her pocket.

“So, Lucy…”

“Mm-hmm?” She leans up against the sink next to me, unwrapping the lollipop.

“If you don’t even like Luis and Alejo and those guys then why—” I pause to pick up the lollipop wrapper that she tosses on the floor and put it in the trash. “Why were you hanging out with them?”

“I wanted them to teach me graffiti.”

“You wanted to learn graffiti?... Why?”

She shrugs, swirling her tongue around the lollipop so it clatters faintly against her teeth. “It looked like fun.”

I’m quiet as I apply concealer to the rest of the bruise and what I can of the cut without it stinging too much. I try to ignore the way Lucy’s lips suck at the lollipop and then the echoing crackle as she loses patience and crunches down on it with her teeth.

“Okay,” I click the concealer case shut to find gnawing at what remains of the lollipop stick almost like a little dog with a chew toy. “All done.” I put the concealer back into the makeup case of horrors and zip it back up. “Thank you.”

“I wouldn’t thank me,” she says, picking up the case. “You still look ridiculous.”

 _Yeah, well at least I don’t look like the Winter Soldier’s demented little sister_ , I want to shoot back, but don’t quite have the nerve. I’m pretty sure that _was_ a knife in the bottom of her makeup case, so…

“Listen, I owe you.”

“For scaring you so bad almost suffocated or for telling you your face looks stupid?”

“No—for-for earlier. You didn’t have to step in like that… and you didn’t have to lie for me.”

“You just assume I was lying?”

“I _know_ you were lying.”

“Do you?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, I-I saw the guy who… It doesn’t matter. I didn’t sabotage Alejo’s bike, but I know you didn’t either. So, why did you take the blame for me?”

“It wasn’t for you really. I just don’t like bullies.”

“Well, I—I appreciate it anyway. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Well,” she shrugs, unwrapping another lollipop. “You could go to the dance with me.”

For a second, I’m not even able to process what I just heard. It takes me a few tries to get my mouth to form the word “ _What_?”

“The midwinter dance. The one the announcements won’t shut up about. I was asking if you want to go to that… with me.”

“What—oh… I-I…” I feel the blunt shock of the moment slowly giving way to panic. This can’t—this can’t be happening. “Lucy—I-I don’t—”

“ _Shhhh_.” She stops me by sticking the lollipop into my stammering mouth. “Don’t answer yet.” She gives my cheek a short pat and smiles, crinkling her nose. “I can see you need some time to think about it.”

All I can do is close my teeth around the lollipop to keep it from falling out of my mouth and stand there like an idiot as the cherry-flavored sweetness seeps across my tongue.

From what I understand from movies, the person who does the asking out is traditionally supposed to be the one stuttering with nerves. But Lucy couldn’t be more nonchalant as she steps back and adjusts her bra.

“Damn, I’m _starving_! Do you know where a girl can find some food around here?”

“Um… i-in the cafeteria,” I slur around the lollipop. “That way.” I point. “But… they’re not going to serve lunch for another—Lucy?” But she’s already skipped her way out of the bathroom, leaving the door to swinging back and forth behind her as the echoes of her humming fade off down the hall.

 

 _ ThePurpleMagpie _ _,_ _4:56 PM Today_

 _So, a weird thing—scratch that—a_ few _weird things happened to me today._

 

I have to start with the beginning of all the weirdness, with the day I saw the boy in the black coat yanking out Alejo’s brakes. Then I move on to Luis punching me in the mouth, to the fireworks, up to the encounter with Lucy in the bathroom, my fingers flying across the keyboard. This has got to be the first time I’ve ever blogged about my own life in such meticulous detail. As uncomfortable—as downright embarrassing—as it is, it’s… weirdly calming, to just put it into words, to lay the bare facts out where I can see them… consider them… try to figure out what to do with them. It makes the whole situation at least _seem_ manageable.

 

_I can’t talk to my parents about this. My dad is a staunch Catholic (totally against homosexuality, drugs, candy, roller-skating without a helmet, basically everything about this girl) and my mom would probably tell me to take Lucy to the dance just to spite my dad. Okay, that’s probably not fair. I think she genuinely wants me to explore my sexuality the way she did when she was my age. But the thing is, I’m not like her. I don’t like diving headfirst into strange waters with weird people I barely know._

_But I’m rambling now and I’m sorry. So, here’s my dilemma in bullet points:_

_On the one hand, I really want to say ‘yes’ to Lucy because:_

  * _I owe her big time_
  * _I like her… in a platonic way, at least. She seems nice._
  * _I genuinely find her attractive… in a platonic way._
  * _It’s the nice thing to do. She’s new at school and doesn’t seem to have had the best time making friends. (Also, there’s a significant chance she’s mentally disabled?? which would make turning her down feel even worse) I mean, she seems pretty self-confident on her own, but everybody needs friends, right?_



_On the other hand, I really want to say ‘no’ to Lucy because:_

  * _I barely know her. Not that I have ~~much~~ any experience with dating, but I’m not the sort of person to rush into something as important as a romantic relationship (or even a meaningless date)_
  * _Honestly, she unnerves me a little bit. Not in a bad way… I don’t think. She just seems kind of reckless, and cavalier, and promiscuous in a way that makes me uncomfortable._
  * _Despite my mom’s aggressive atheism, I am still at least half a Catholic and the Bible is pretty clear on homosexual activity—even thoughts—being a big no, no. I know most of you aren’t religious, but I hope you can understand that Catholic values have been a big part of my upbringing and I want to stay true to them for my own peace of mind._
  * _My dad is the serious Catholic and I can’t be certain he won’t disown me if he ever finds out I went out with a girl. My family already tore itself in half once. I couldn’t bear to have it break apart again. Not because of me._



_ JaimieSparrow _ _,_ _5:32 PM Today_

_I wasn’t raised religious, so maybe I have no business talking about this (and feel free to ignore this post if you think I’m out of line) but aren’t there lots of interpretations of the Bible that don’t condemn homosexuality? I know the Pope endorsed gay marriage recently. If you’re worried about staying true to Catholic values, that should count for something, right?_

_ dizzydaisy _ _,_ _5:34 PM Today_

_What in the world is half a Catholic supposed to mean? Do you believe or not?_

 

And of course I don’t have an answer for that… which is precisely what ‘half a Catholic’ was meant to mean. But I know how stupid sounds, so I don’t respond.

_ the-sisters-winchester _ _,_ _5:44 PM Today_

_As a Christian pansexual who dealt with a lot of the same internal conflict when I was your age, I’m going to tell you the conclusion I came to after years spent going through a million different interpretations of Biblical law and stressing out about everyone’s opinion of me. And that’s that salvation isn’t about anything as trivial as what body parts you have and what you choose to do with them in bed. It’s about how you manage your emotions and treat the people in your life._

_Of course, you’ll have to explore your faith and come to your own conclusions for yourself. I just wanted to let you know that you shouldn’t despair just because things seem confusing now. Because it is possible to work through these feelings and come out whole._

_Usually I don’t share anything quite this personal online, but your blog and your fanfiction have done so much to entertain and inspire me these past few years, I thought I owed it to you. Best of luck, friend._

_ PrincessKanna _ _,_ _6:05 PM Today_

_It’s up to you in the end, but kind of sounds to me like you’re uncomfortable enough that you should probably tell Lucy you can’t go with her. You could make up an excuse if you really don’t want to hurt her feelings, but no matter how much you like someone or feel like you owe them, they’re not worth tearing yourself apart._

_ V4Vector _ _,_ _6:21 PM Today_

_I’m with PrincessKanna on this one. You come first. I think you need to put aside your concerns about what Lucy and your dad want from you and think seriously about what you want (from your faith, your romantic life, your sexuality, etc.) before you make any irreversible decisions._

_ scienciasbros _ _,_ _7:55 PM Today_

_Alright, all sexuality and religion business aside, why is nobody else bringing up the fact that this girl is a fucking safety hazard? You can smell the crazy on her through a damn text post._

_Magpie, she threw a smoking firework at you._

_In case you need me to repeat that, she **threw a firework at you**_

_A little louder? **SHE THREW A GODAMN FIREWORK AT YOU**_

_As a general rule, you are not obligated to go out with someone who throws fireworks at you._

_Does that really need to be our next big PSA post? PSA: You are not obligated to go out with someone who throws fireworks at you?_

_?????_

_ JaimieSparrow _ _,_ _7:57 PM Today_

_Okay but in Miss Lucy’s defense, the firework stunt did kind of save Magpie from being punched in the face again. You gotta give her that._

_ LMaximo _ _,_ _9:12 PM Today_

_id hit it_

 

I stay up late into the night, burrowed under my covers, refreshing my activity page over, and over, and over, looking for new pieces of advice until the words start to slide around on the screen and sleep drags my eyelids shut.

Not too surprisingly, I tumble from my conscious thoughts right into a dream about Lucy. She comes to my window and clambers in, roller skates and all.

_“Do you know where a girl can find some food?” She asks brightly._

_“In the cafeteria.”_

_“Oh…” She looks around with wide eyes. “I don’t know the way. Will you show me?”_

_“Sure.” I say and we walk out of my room, only to find ourselves standing on the soft dirt-carpet floor of a forest of stock straight pines that go up forever._

_Confused, but not overly worried, I take Lucy’s hand and start off down the widest and clearest of the paths between the trees. “I think it’s this way.”_

_I walk confidently down the forest floor for some time, but the path twists and winds around in ways I wasn’t expecting. I start to get nervous and press on, hoping that around the next corner, or the next, or the next, I’ll find something that looks familiar, but the path only gets rockier and more twisted. The forest starts to darken around us. The path is getting narrower… harder to see. I think I hear something skitter in the underbrush near my ankles, but I can’t see what it is and all of a sudden, I realize I don’t remember the way back home._

_“I think we’re lost,” I say as my insides go watery and cold. “Lucy—” I begin, but when I turn back, my hand is clutching empty air and Lucy is nowhere to be seen._

_“Lucy!” I cry out into the darkening trees, but my only answer is an ominous rustle in the branches around me._

_I’m alone._

I shiver awake with cold sweat clinging to my skin and it’s a long time before I’m able to get to sleep again.

 


	7. Mortal Sin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There is gore in this chapter. Nothing too drawn out, but it's briefly graphic, so just a heads up.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _Instead of yelling BOO this Halloween, yell something even scarier, like COMMITMENT or STUDENT LOANS_ ”  
—pendejx

 

I have lots of nightmares, lots of creatively upsetting anxiety dreams, and I usually don’t have any trouble putting them out of my mind. But the dream from last night is sticking stubbornly to the inside of my skull. I suppose I should be thankful that I make it to school without getting harassed at all. But with ever step I take down the sidewalk, I see those twisting paths from the dream. I see Lucy’s bouncing pigtails… which is weirdly almost worse than the jerk squad. The jerk squad, at least, doesn’t burrow deep into my conscience and confuse the hell out of me.

The dream follows me out of the house, to Mike’s street corner, through the doors of the school and down the hall… until I realize suddenly that isn’t just in my head. That’s really Lucy, coming down the hall toward me with her cute little grin and her pigtails, and she’s probably looking for an answer about the dance, and oh God, I have to get out of here! Panicked, I practically dive into my English classroom. Safe. I slide into my desk near the window and rub my eyes.

“Now, for today, I just want you all to get out your notebooks, get yourself a blank page and start writing. It can be just jotting down ideas, key words, whatever you want. Just to get yourself thinking about your college essay and what you want to say with it.”

Everyone gets out their notebooks and clicks the led out of the tips of their mechanical pencils.

“I don’t really care what you’re writing about, at this point,” Mr. Roth says. “I just want to see those pencils moving.”

So I move my pencil…

 

_Ever since I was little, I have loved telling stories, taking what I know of the world and reimagining it to have special meaning for me._

 

But I already know I won’t be able to use this for my college essay. Deep down, I know that storytelling is the most important part of my identity, but I can’t write about it honestly without admitting to writing mostly fanfiction. And I can’t do that. Fanfiction is a joke to most of the world. It’s certainly not something you flaunt if you want to be taken seriously as a writer… or as a person.

I come home to a mountain of messages asking whether or not I’ve resolved my Lucy problem. I read through them but I’m too ashamed to respond to any of them and decide instead to change the subject.

 

 _ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 7:18 PM, Oct 20_

_So, I have to write my college essay. I’ve been trying to come up with an idea all day and it hasn’t been going well. Any advice?_

 

Only a few people respond. I go to bed that night without finding a good essay idea or wiping Lucy from my mind.

 

_“Do you know where a girl can find some food?”_

_“I…” I don’t know if I want to do this again. I’ll just get us lost. “I don’t—”_

_“You know what, it’s okay,” she says cheerfully, “I’ll find some myself.” And she goes skipping off down one of the forest paths._

_“No—wait! Wait a second!” I run after her, terrified of being left alone there in the woods._

_The leafy paths spread out between the trees like a spider’s web. Lucy jumps from path to path with ease, but I can’t move the way she does._

_“Wait! Wait for me!” I stumble onto the path after her. I’ve almost reached her when she dances away again and_

_She jumps to a different path, scaring a flurry of little black birds out of the undergrowth._

_“Ahh, perfect.” She snatches one of the birds out of the air. “We don’t need any of these.”_

_The bird chirps for a moment, beating its little wings against her hand. Then she tightens her fingers around it and it goes quiet. I’ve just opened my mouth to ask why she did that when she lifts the little animal to her mouth and sinks her teeth into it like it’s a chicken drumstick._

_“Don’t eat that!” I exclaim._

_“Why not?” She asks, pulling out its tiny entrails with her teeth. “It’s good.”_

_“Stop it!”_

_“Here, you try some.” Lucy tosses her unfinished meal into my unsuspecting hands._

_I cry out in disgust and drop the bird. It thuds to the ground in a bloody splat. When I look up Lucy is gone._

“ _No_!” I shoot upright, startling Muffin off the end of the bed. My covers are heavy and sweaty on my legs, even though the room is cold. Letting out a shaky breath, I rub my hands together just to make sure they’re totally free of feathers and guts.

After a moment, Muffin jumps back up on the bed beside me, green eyes watching warily as though to make sure I’m not going to make any other sudden moves.

“This is your fault.” I tell him. If he hadn’t brought back a half-chewed chickadee the other day, bird entrails wouldn’t have been floating around my subconscious at all.

 

 _ V4Vector _ _, 9:58 PM, Oct 22_

 _So, you’re having creepy dreams about her now? Weird, but have you actually_ talked _to her yet?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 10:21 PM, Oct 22_

_I actually haven’t seen Lucy in a few days. It’s not because I’ve been avoiding her. She just hasn’t been at school at all. I asked my classmate, Martha, about it before English class. I figured she might know because she also hangs out with the jerk squad every once in a while (I think she used to date one of them). She said Lucy was expelled._

 

“Yeah,” Martha said. “I heard she got caught having sex with some guy from the basketball team on school property.”

“No,” Carla said. “I heard she got caught with drugs in her backpack and they expelled her.”

“I heard it was fireworks,” Evelyn said.

“Nuh-uh.” Juana interjected. “It was the corn puppies.”

“What corn puppies?”

“What, you didn’t hear? Rosa has first hour gym class with Lucy and she told me she got caught stealing food from the cafeteria.”

“What, like, to sell or something? Who’d buy that crap?”

“No. She was _eating_ it, right there in the kitchen. Lunch lady said by the time they found her, skinny bitch had put away five pounds of corn puppies.”

“ _Five pounds_?” Carla repeated. “That ain’t possible.”

As the Mexican girls argue and threw around rumors, I settled back into my desk feeling strangely empty. She’s gone. Whether it was because of sex, or fireworks, or consuming an inhuman number of corn puppies, she’s gone. And I never got to give her an answer about the dance… I mean, granted, I was going to end up having to say ‘no,’ or if I didn’t say ‘no,’ I was going to have to deal with the guilt, and my dad, and who knew what other horrible things. Either way, something was going to happen… and now it’s not.

I want to be relieved that she’s gone. I _should_ be relieved. She had bad news written all over her. I should be happy I’ve been spared the awkwardness and guilt of the whole situation, but I’m not happy. I don’t know why… Maybe it’s because agonizing over the Lucy dilemma was the only thing distracting me from the bigger terror of the college essay.

 

_When I look back at my life, at the times I felt the happiest and most alive, I’m always playing._

_I’ve poured all of myself into recreating that…_

But that only confirms what every other essay I’ve tried has. That I’m terrified of reality, of the future, of myself… that I’ll go to any lengths to avoid it. That, despite my decent grades and good test scores, I have no qualities to recommend me in the real world. I end up scribbling out the page and turning to a new one.

Another week passes and I still don’t see Lucy. Part of me wonders if she might have been expelled… The idea makes me equal parts relieved and weirdly, deeply sad… although the weather has gotten colder, meaning the PE teachers have stopped taking their classes outside. So, just because I don’t see her out the English room window anymore doesn’t mean she’s gone forever… It’s possible that she’s been around in the halls and I just keep missing her.

_“Lucy?” I call out, turning around in the darkening trees. “Lucy, where are you?”_

_Grasping my way through the pines, I search for some sign of her. I see lots of footprints along the paths, but I can’t find any that belong to a human. Instead there are animal tracks, the grooves of skittering claws and the sharp indents of cloven hooves pressed into mud and moss._

_The ghostly hoof-prints swerve, leading me around bends and curves until they come to a stop, along with the trees at a wide paved road._ Oh good, _I think,_ a road. _There might be cars, civilization, someone who might be able to help me. But when I reach the road, it is old and cracked and not matter how I crane my neck, I can’t see where it leads._

_I need to find Lucy, I remember vaguely. I walk down the edge of the road for a long time, straining my eyes for some sign of her. A few times, I think I can hear her laugh, but it’s just a rush of wind or rustle of birds._

_After miles through the darkness, the road splits, branching out in two directions. I stop short at the fork, hopelessly looking from one to the other, trying to figure out which one to take. But I can’t see where either one will lead. They both melt darkly into the forest._

_I know I’ll never find Lucy if I don’t move forward, but what if I pick the wrong one and can’t make my way back?_

_“Lucy!” I call, too afraid to take a step in either direction. “Lucy!” But both branches of the road lie flat and silent._

_A short handled stop sign is lying on the gravel at the crumbling edge of the asphalt. If there was a crosswalk, it’s been washed out by eons of wind and rain. If there was a crossing guard, he hasn’t been here for a long time…_

_It makes me sad._

By the time November rolls around, I still haven’t seen so much as a black pigtail and I must have scrapped a hundred false starts on that fucking essay. None of the approaches I’ve tried have ended up coming together into the graceful, coherent statement about myself that I need. How can I be so good at writing big, complicated stories about hundreds of characters way cooler and more complex than me in worlds way bigger than mine and so bad at writing three lousy pages about myself? How can I be so good at making sense of a hundred different characters, and their motives, and themes, and backstories, and so bad at making sense of my own life?

When I asked my followers for essay ideas, CaptainQ recommended I write about my experience of reconciling my possible bisexuality with my sort-of Catholic upbringing. That sounds like it would make a great essay except that I _haven’t_ reconciled my sexuality with my religion. I haven’t committed to either one really… probably because I don’t want to deal with the inevitable conflict that will arise if I do. And what kind of message does that send about me? Hey, prestigious colleges, I’m an indecisive coward with identity issues I refuse to resolve, accept me!

Starkid-parker and the-sisters-winchester suggested I write about growing up biracial in the U.S. Not a bad idea… I _did_ just get punched in the face for being a surly poncha who won’t speak Spanish. That’s dramatic enough to make a good hook:

 

_I never thought of myself as a particularly punchable person…_

                                            

But as soon as I start with that, I realize that I can’t go on from there. Because I don’t know _what_ Luis and his friends disliked so much about me… I know it has something to do with me being sort of Mexican but sort of not… but it’s not something I can really put into words. I’m stopped there as, all around me, my classmates keep on scribbling.

“Everything alright, Jocelyn?” Mr. Roth asks.

“Yeah…” I say, staring down at the one line I’ve written. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

 

_I never thought of myself as a particularly punchable person…_

 

And suddenly, all I can think about is Lucy, and her fearless, frightening smile and how I’d give anything to see it just one more time. To figure out what it was behind it that made that light in her eyes…

It’s all I can think about as I pretend to write in my notebook for the next ten minutes. It’s all I can think about as Mr. Roth reads off our depressing poem for the day. There’s plenty of Wordsworth and Dickinson in our textbook, but he always has to pick the gloomiest, most distressing poets for us to analyze and discuss.

 

 _“We are the hollow men_ ,” he reads off solemnly.

_“We are the stuffed men_

_Leaning together_

_Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!_

_Our dried voices, when_

_We whisper together_

_Are quiet and meaningless_

_As wind in dry grass_

_Or rats’ feet over broken glass_

_In our dry cellar_

We’re supposed to be following along and making notes, but I can only stare out the window at the field outside. It’s the first time the snow has stuck enough to blanket the grass, leaving the landscape flat and featureless.

_Shape without form, shade without colour,_

_Paralysed force, gesture without motion;_

_Those who have crossed_

_With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom_

_Remember us—if at all—not as lost_

_Violent souls, but only_

_As the hollow men_

_The stuffed men.”_

 

And… _Jocelyn_ , could you take the next part for us?”

“Oh.” I blink, my eyes flicking from the snow to the equally still whiteness of the page in front of me. “Um—yeah.” I clear my throat, unsure why it suddenly feels so tight, and read aloud:

 

_“Eyes I dare not meet in dreams_

_In death’s dream kingdom_

_These do not appear:_

_There, the eyes are_

_Sunlight on a broken column_

_There, is a tree swinging_

_And voices are_

_In the wind’s singing_

_More distant and more solemn_

_Than a fading star.”_

 

My throat feels swollen, like it’s pressing in on itself and I find myself straining to continue:

 

_“Let me be no nearer_

_In death’s dream kingdom_

_Let me also wear_

_Such deliberate disguises_

_Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves_

_In a field_

_Behaving as the wind behaves_

_No nearer—”_

 

I pause to swallow and feel a warm tingle rise in my eyes.

 

_“Not that final meeting_

_In the twilight kingdom,”_

 

“Thank you, Jocelyn.” Mr. Roth says.

I don’t think anyone sees that I’ve started to cry.

_This time I_ run _up to the fork in the road, nearly tripping over the abandoned stop sign in my hurry, but I can’t quite bring myself to keep running beyond the split._

_“Lucy!” I cry out in frustration. “Lucy, I just need to talk to you!”_

_There is a man standing a ways down the road. His coat is long and black like the dark spaces in between the trees. He watches me from where he stands, but he doesn’t say anything._

_I don’t know whether I want to step toward him or not. I don’t know if it’s safe… and what if it’s the wrong way? What if he doesn’t take me any closer to Lucy? Or what if he does but it’s some kind of trap?...Why doesn’t he say anything?_

_“Sorry,” I call out, swaying uncertainly on the balls of my feet. “Excuse me… is this your stop sign?”_

_He doesn’t answer._

_“Because… if it is, I think you might have left it here too long.”_

_“Probably,” he says._

_“I’m looking for my friend,” I say, conscious for a moment of how weird it is that I’m calling Lucy my friend when I’ve barely had one conversation with her. “I think she might have passed this way. Have you seen her?”_

_The man doesn’t answer._

_“Have you seen her?” I ask again._

_The man gives me a sad smile and shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”_

_..._

_I’ve run into him several times now, in this weird dream I keep having. Usually it’s in that same place, at the dilapidated intersection where I’m sure someone should be manning a crosswalk. Once he was just standing in the woods watching me. No matter how many times I ask him if he’s seen Lucy, he always gives the same answer. “I wouldn’t know.”_

_No idea who he is, but he’s really starting to get on my nerves._

_ V4Vector _ _, 12:40 PM, Nov 16_

_You say you have no idea who the man in your dream is, but studies have shown that there aren’t actually any unfamiliar faces in our dreams; all the faces that appear in your dreams are faces you’ve seen at some point in real life. So, you must have seen him somewhere before._

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 4:01 PM, Nov 16_

_Well, whoever he is, he must not be somebody I like very much because I kind of want to punch him every time he pops up._

_ Dreamcatcherintherye _ _, 11:46 PM, Nov 16_

_I believe all dreams have meaning. Do you think the man in the black coat could be a representation of your dad? Are you angry with your father for not giving you the guidance you need?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 11:50 PM, Nov 16_

_I don’t think so. This guy is younger than my dad… I think. It’s kind of hard to tell. And, if anything, my dad gives too much ‘guidance.’ If I had repressed thoughts about him, they would probably have more to do with him backing off than anything else._

_ Dreamcatcherintherye _ _, 12:01 AM, Nov 16_

_Maybe he’s a representation of your dad getting in between you and Lucy._

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 12:20 PM, Nov 16_

 _There’s nothing to ‘get in between.’ We don’t have an actual relationship. I_ do _think maybe I’ve seen him before, but I don’t feel like I know him… like he’s someone I wanted to know at some point, but I never worked up the nerve to talk to him or… now I think I’m just making stuff up. I need to go to bed… and this time maybe try to steer myself away from any repressed thoughts about Lucy._

_…_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 4:45 PM, Nov 17_

_And speak of the Devil. She showed up at school today._

_ PrincessKanna _ _, 4:47 PM, Nov 17_

_Who? Lucy?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 4:52 PM, Nov 17_

_Yeah. I saw on the other side of the cafeteria when I was getting lunch._

_ PrincessKanna _ _, 4:53 PM, Nov 17_

_did you talk to her?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 4:59 PM, Nov 17_

_No. I only saw her for a second and she was far away._

_ JaimieSparrow _ _, 5:08 PM, Nov 17_

_Are u sure it was her?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 5:12 PM, Nov 17_

_Yeah. She’s pretty unmistakable. And not just because of her makeup and hairstyle. The way she moves is distinct. It was her._

_ Dreamcatcherintherye _ _, 5:30 PM, Nov 17_

_So, she’s not expelled. She’s back in school with you… and how are we feeling about that?_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 5:31 PM, Nov 17_

_I don’t know._

 

And it’s true. I really have no idea what to feel about Lucy back in school with me. I’ve considered everything from relief and joy, to all-out panic… and none of them seem quite right. So, I steer my thoughts and the online discussion back in the direction of the lesser evil of my stupid college essay. JaimieSparrow, RavenofAzarath, and SevenLols recommended that I write about a fictional character that has had a profound influence on my life and worldview. Humphrey-prince-of-narwhals told me he got into his number one school with an essay about how playing Prince Hal in Henry IV Part I through Henry V helped him come into his own as an adult in the real world.

_ humphrey-prince-of-narwhals _ _, 7:02 PM, Nov 20_

 _Admittedly, I bullshitted ~~parts~~ most of it_ , he said, _but the admissions office liked it so much, they gave me a writing scholarship._

So, I figure that’s got to be worth a try:

 

_As a writer, I’ve been inspired and affected by legions of fictional characters but hands down, the most influential fictional character in my life has been Batman._

_Batman?_ No, God. That’s not original. Everyone talks about Batman, so…

_… Dick Grayson?_

_… Wonder Woman?_

Still not very original. Okay, um…

_The most influential fictional character in my life has been Daredevil?_

_… has been Hermione Granger?_

_… Brienne of Tarth?_

_… Captain Katherine Janeway?_

_…_

_The most influential fictional character in my life has been Harley Quinn…_

_has been Loki…_

_ ThePurpleMagpie _ _, 7:12 PM, Nov 24_

_Okay, I admit, I had some fun playing with those last two, but it’s not like I can actually use those. I don’t want colleges to think I’m not only a geek, but a psychopath. So, Harley and Loki are off the table._

_ CaptainQ _ _, 8:31 PM, Nov 27_

_Magpie, I’ve been following your entrance essay efforts and it seems to me that whenever you tap into a prompt or idea that actually says something about you, you immediately pull back and dismiss it. I understand. It can be difficult and embarrassing—even a little disturbing—to be honest about yourself on paper. But please take it from me when I say it will be worth it to try—for your own mental well-being as much as anyone else’s opinion._

_I don’t doubt that you can get into a good college by being dishonest about yourself (I daresay, many of us did and God knows you’re good at writing fiction). But I think you should ask yourself if you really want to spend 2-6 years of your life at a place that accepted you for someone you really aren’t._

And why does all the best advice from my followers require me to come up with an answer? It would all be well and good if I knew what I wanted from my college experience, my social interactions, my whole life… but I just have no idea. It’s starting to make me insane. Maybe it’s worth trying out a completely honest idea. Just one.

 

_I think most people look back on the time when they were small with a sense of longing. Maybe not for the skinned knees, the screaming matches with siblings, the moments of shame. But for the sense of security—the idea that we were safe from everything in our parents’ arms, that God or the world had some grand plan for us that was going to play out to perfection, or that mummifying a toy in scotch tape could save it from the passage of time._

_I’ve been running back into the embrace of my childhood world more and more as adulthood bears down on me, back to the paper and plastic heroes I loved when life was simpler. My dad says it’s cowardice, a refusal to grow up. The adult world, he says, isn’t made of invulnerable color-coded heroes. It’s not made of tidy plotlines and easy answers._

_But what my dad doesn’t understand—what a lot of people don’t understand—is that I need the stories from my childhood to move forward with being an adult. They’re not some static thing that’s stayed the same since I was five. My perceptions of the worlds and characters have changed with me as I’ve grown._

_The way I understand my world is to start with the simple concepts a child could understand and then rework and retool them to be more realistic as my perception of reality deepens and expands. I understand my world in terms of how cardboard cut-out characters and plastic concepts change when I make them flesh._

“Damn, that’s _good_!” Martha exclaims when we finish the peer reading in our small groups.

“Yeah, I like it,” Carla says.

“But, I think you need, like, an example,” Martha says. “Like, for the ‘show don’t tell’ rule. I think you need to write about a time you wrote about one of these fictional characters and something about them changed and helped you understand, like, your adulthood or something like that.”

“Yeah…” She’s right. She’s totally right. Writing about the theory behind my obsessive nostalgia doesn’t have much punch unless I write about how fanfiction about Batman villains made me think seriously about mental illness, or how writing in the Marvel universe helped me understand the subtleties of discrimination, or—God forbid—how slashfic introduced me to the idea of homosexuality… But that would mean giving these college admissions people—these strangers—the actual details of some of my fanfiction. And I can’t do that. I just can’t. My fics are between me and the people who actually appreciate them. Not some judgmental academics who will just write me off as a childish nerd.

As the air gets cold and snow accumulates on the ground, the essays get weirder, more abstract, less usable…

 

_Some of my earliest (and happiest) memories from when my parents were together are off watching Star Trek: Voyager with them on our living room couch. I don’t remember much about the show itself—just that we were together. But there was one episode that stuck with me._

_In episode 14 of season 1, “Faces,” half human, half Klingon engineer B’elanna Torres is split into two different version of herself, on entirely Klingon and one entirely human._

_I didn’t know then why the idea offended me so much._

But I don’t know _now_ why it bothered me so much. I know it has something to do with the idea that there’s somehow a dichotomy between humans and Klingons. Like you could be mentally physically split into two polarized stereotypes and still be… _you_. The obvious reason is that my subconscious little brain interpreted the episode to be telling me that the Mexican Jocelyn separable—either physically or conceptually—from the white Jocelyn… or that there was a white-bread straight Jocelyn that was somehow separable from the nasty lesbian one…

I don’t want to think that they’re inseparable. I’d like to think this is something I can filter out of my system… But if they _are_ separable… then am I somehow not a whole person? And what _is_ identity? and wow, that is way more existential than I’m ready to deal with.

I try the idea from a different angle:

 

_Merriam-Webster defines ‘dichotomy’ as ‘a difference between two opposite things” a division into two opposite groups’… ‘a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities,’ ‘the process or practice of making such a division’…_

 

but that doesn’t take me anywhere.

_‘Be true to yourself.’ That seems to be the mantra of my generation. ‘Be true to yourself, even if it goes against your family, your community, your religion…’ But my family is part of my self. Whether or not I decide to be a proper Catholic won’t change the fact that my father is one and that he will always be important to me. Whether or not I want to be an artist won’t change the fact that my mother is one and I will always want her to be proud of me…_

 

After a few more failed attempts, I crawl into bed hoping to get a little sleep. But as soon as I close my eyes, I’m in fucking _Mirkwood_ again _. My feet take me to the stop sign at the edge of the weatherworn road. I hesitate. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I take a halting step over the stop sign. And there she is! There’s Lucy, bent over at the edge of the road, her lightless black hood drawn up over her pigtails._

_“Lucy?”_

_“I got something to eat,” her voice says cheerfully. “But it hurts to chew.”_

_She’s hunched over in the wavering dark, feeding on the body of some animal. Whatever it is, it’s still alive, quivering. I can hear the crunch of bone and squelch of ripping flesh. She turns around with her mouth covered in blood. “Why did you do this to me?”_

_“I didn’t do anything,” I try to say, but I don’t think she can hear me._

_I look past her to get a better look at the dead animal… but it’s not an animal at all. It’s a_ man _. The man in the black coat. He’s still breathing, but his eyes are wide and full of pain, his mouth open in a silent scream. His torso has been ripped open, his ribcage stripped so that I can see through it into his writhing insides._

_“Oh my God! Why—” I turn on Lucy to demand why she would do this to him. But she isn’t there. Instead I find my own hands dripping with blood. My lip stings and I feel it running from my mouth._

_It was me._

_“No! No—I didn’t—are you okay?” I throw myself down on the man and put my arms around him as though I can hold him together with my bare hands. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re going to be okay.”_

_“I think we’re past that.”_

_The man puts his arms around me and suddenly I can’t push out of his grasp. I’m trapped there. And somehow I know it’s my fault. “Let me go. I have to get back home. Let me go.” His grip isn’t actually that strong… so why can’t I pull out of it? Why am I letting him hold me here?_

_“You can go back home… if you really want to.”_

_I scream, but somehow I still can’t make my arms move, can’t make myself push him away._

_“But you followed me here, didn’t you?”_

_“No—I didn’t—”_

_I feel his teeth sinking into me._

_“No!_ No!”

I lurch upright with a terrified gasp. My fists are tangled in my comforter. Muffin is sitting at the foot of my bed, invisible except for his green eyes.

“Was I screaming?” I ask softly. Of course, he doesn’t answer.

I pull my knees up to my chest, rubbing one arm over the other in the cold that has started to creep into my room from the poorly insulated windows. “That was messed up…” I put my face in my hands and try to press the image from my mind with my palms over my eyes. This whole creepy dream business is getting out of hand. I have to get this fucked up stuff out of my head… “I have to talk to her, don’t I?”

Muffin is silent, his eyes glowing judgmentally in the dark.

“I have to talk to her.”

 

The next morning, I’m so nervous I feel like my tongue could retract into my body and tie itself into a knot around my heart. The morning announcements cheerfully tells us that the theme for the Midwinter dance will be Masquerade and that the date has been set for December twenty-seventh, right after finals. My hand shakes when Mr. Roth tells us to sit for fifteen minutes and work on our essays.

 

 _Sometimes the devil puts things in our path to test us. Until recently, I thought the soul might be made of one’s relationships and emotions. Now I think it might be something else. Something that can be pulled apart and cannibalized, and_ god, I sound insane. I have to confront Lucy. I have to tell her I’m sorry, but I can’t go to the dance with her. I’ll be able to put her out of my mind and put an end to this madness.

 

_Sometimes the devil puts things in our path to test us. The test is in how we face up to them._

 

I know where Lucy’s gym class will let out. I walk there like I’m in a dream, letting my feet carry me forward straight, and fast, and without any thought. I catch her before she even makes it to the changing room.

“Jocelyn!” She exclaims. “Haven’t seen _your_ stupid face in a while. I see your lip healed up okay.” There isn’t as much makeup around her eyes today and they glow with joy. I make myself steel against it.

“Listen, Lucy… about the dance—”

“Right. That,” she laughs. “We never figured out the details. I ain’t got a car, so I was wondering if you could pick me up. You got a car?”

“I—y-yes—I have a car, but—”

“Cool. You can pick me up at the corner of Cherry and Winston where we first met.”

“Oh… I…” I don’t know what to do. She’s talking so fast. I just need to regain my bearings, I just need to get a word in and tell her—

“Is seven-o-clock a good time for you? Let’s say seven for now. You can call me if you wanna change it. I ain’t got your number, do I? Lemme get your number. Or, you know what, I’ll give you mine.”

Before I can even catch up to everything she’s saying, she’s slid my phone out of my pocket and started entering her number. As her thumbs punch at the screen of my phone, her brow furrows in confusion and there is a brief moment of silence between us. An opening. I take a breath.

“Listen… Lucy… I have something I need to say.”

“Yeah?” She looks up at me, her big eyes eager, and excited, and—dammit—fucking adorable. _Fuck_. “What?”

“I… wh-why?” I ask. “Why would you want to go to the dance with me?”

She gives me a smiling half-squint of confusion. “Why _wouldn’t_ I?”

“You… you’re _pretty_ , you’re…” The word I was looking for wasn’t ‘easy,’ it wasn’t ‘alluring,’ exactly… ‘sexually liberated’ would just have sounded awkward. “You could go with anyone you wanted.”

“Well, I don’t wanna go with anyone else.” She says fiercely. “I wanna go with _you_.” She looks right at me with those fervent, piercing eyes and I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I feel a little thrill of warmth inside me. And I can’t crush it.

“I—th-thank you,” I stammer, feeling myself smile in spite of myself.

“Great!” She pats my cheek and something in me flutters, tying up my tongue. “So, I’ll see you at seven on December twenty-seventh.” And she heads into the locker room before I can unravel my tongue to say another word.

 

“What do I do?” I almost scream. “Oh God, Muffin, what do I do? What do I do?” I spent the rest of the school day trying to track Lucy down between classes, to say what I really needed to say, but I didn’t know her schedule and I couldn’t catch her. Now that I’m home, I’m close to a full-on meltdown. “I posted about it, like, five whole minutes ago and no one’s given me any advice! Muffin! What do I do?”

I pace the length of my room furiously back, and forth, and back, and forth as the cat perches on the windowsill, green eyes following me with a sort of detached interest.

“Okay, okay, I can be calm about this,” I say driving my fingers back through my hair. “There has to be a calm way to deal with this. Okay, what if… what if I just go with Lucy. I mean, I do kind of—” I stop short of saying ‘like her’ because I can’t quite admit to that. Not aloud. Because that just makes it too complicated. There must be a solid, _logical_ reason to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to her without bringing my sexuality into it.

“What if I just go, and don’t make a big deal about it, and just don’t tell my dad? And it doesn’t have to be a romantic thing. It can be one of those platonic plus one things, right? It doesn’t have to be a _date_ … yeah. Lots of people go to dances together just as friends… don’t they?” I say uncertainly and suddenly I wish I’d paid more attention to dances and dating these past three years. “But, no… no, that doesn’t work!” I growl. “She told me to pick her up. That means I need the car and that means my parents never have to know. _Agh_!” I dig my fingers into my scalp. “But I don’t _like_ lying to my parents!”

“You already are,” a voice points out.

“ _What_?” I whirl around, looking for the source of the voice, but there’s no one there. Just Muffin, sitting with his tail curled around his feet. Fuck. Fuck. Between this essay, and Lucy, and these increasingly creepy dreams, I might actually be losing my mind.

“No, you know what, I’m not going to lie to my parents.” I say, slamming my fist down on the desk. “I’m not going to lie to Lucy. I’m not going to lie to _myself_. I’m going to call Lucy right now. I’m going to call her and tell her the situation and turn her down. That’s what I’m going to do.” Before I can lose my nerve, I snatch up my phone, hit Lucy’s name, and put the phone to my ear.

Lucy’s phone rings once… and again… and again… and I wait, rigid, looking into Muffin’s unblinking eyes, my teeth ground together so hard it hurts… again… again…

I let out my breath when all I get is an automated voice, telling me to leave a message after the beep.

“Hi Lucy this is Jocelyn Jocelyn from school,” I spit too fast and probably too loudly too the second I hear the beep. “I’m just calling to tell you that I’m sorry, but I can’t go to the dance with you. And… I’m sorry. Really—super sorry. I-I want you to know that it’s not you. It’s me… I’m—kind of—Catholic and there’s—family stuff and it—it’s complicated, but it’s not you. I think you’re nice and I hope we can be friends. Okay… okay. I’m really sorry, and—I like you—and… b-bye.”

After I put the phone down, I collapse, weak-kneed, into my chair, physically shaken from the effort. I put my head in my hands as Muffin jumps up on the desk beside me.

“Smooth,” he says.


	8. The God of Mischief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we finally meet our God of Mischief, by name, face to face... eight chapters in. Hooray! Also, yet another chapter I had to split in two because it was too damn long. If anyone wants to help me edit this sucker down in the future, let me know.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _i wish i could say “?????????” in real life it would be very useful_ ”

—katkinkat.tumblr.com

 

I can practically hear the screech of reality grinding to a halt.

“What did you just say?”

“I said smooth,” the cat says dryly. “Who taught you how to talk to girls? A chimpanzee?”

“Oh… oh no… oh no…” I say blankly, vaguely aware that I’ve stumbled back out of my chair. “My cat is talking.”

“Astute.”

“B-but… but…” I stutter helplessly. “You’re a _cat_.”

“At the moment.”

“Wh-wha…” I take a big gulp of air, at this point basically resigned to the idea that I’m dreaming. I _have to_ be. “What do you mean _‘at the moment’_?”

“I’ll show you,” Muffin crouches forward, his green eyes aglow. “If you’re ready.”

“Ready?”

“To have your reality turned on its head.”

“My reality?” I laugh. “Okay, yeah, my cat is talking. I’ve pretty much accepted that this isn’t real.”

“Oh?” Muffin cocks his head and suddenly, he is changing… _growing_ … like a wisp of uncurling smoke. White paws darken and extend into long-fingered hands as cat’s coat flattens into black fabric around human arms and shoulders. Ears fold down and out of sight, fur lengthens into dark mess of human hair, the head turns to reveal a human face, with dark, laughing eyes… and there stands a _man._ A fucking _full-grown man_ in a black coat, standing a head taller than I am, so close I can feel the heat off his luminous olive skin.

I watch, dumbstruck, as he puts a hand to the back of his neck, cracks it a few times, rolls his shoulders and then tilts a smile at me.

“Oh, come now,” he says and his smile alone feels like it could know me off my feet. “You’ve written stranger things than this.”

“Okay…” I tell myself as calmly as I can even as my heart pounds like stampede in my chest. “It’s okay. This isn’t real. None of this is real.”

“Not real, huh?” Lifting a single slender finger, he slides it into his mouth and sucks on it for a moment before pulling it out with a mesmerizingly suggestive flick of his tongue. “You sure about that?”

And he sticks the finger in my ear.

I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so loud in my life. I’m reeling back, my feet stumbling on clothes and comic books, one hand pawing at my ear, which has gone unmistakably wet and cold inside. The backs of my knees bump into the bed, I lose my balance and hit the covers still scrambling back away from the tall, dark apparition that isn’t—that _can’t_ _be_ —real!

The dark thing is laughing now, his eyes alight with mirth. “Alright, alright, take it easy now.” He extends a calming hand.

My back hits the headboard and one of my fumbling hands finds the handle of the baseball bat I keep up against the wall beside the bed.

“Don’t go blowing out those little vocal cords. We haven’t even talked yet.” He comes closer as though to put a hand on my shoulder and I swing the bat right into his face. He might look like a wavering wisp of smoke, but he must be made of something solid because the wood connects with a hard thud and his head snaps to the side.

“ _Ouch,_ ” he says in annoyance. “What was that f—”

I swing again, this time with both hands. There is a sickening crunch of breaking bone as his head whips around more than 90 degrees. My mouth opens in soundless horror, my eyes widening as I take in his grotesquely twisted neck. My heart stops in my chest. Fuck, I _broke his spine_? I _killed him!_

I’m ready to start screaming again when he moves, calmly twisting his head back around, one cracking joint at a time. It’s disgusting, I feel myself grimacing at the sight, but for some reason, I find that I can’t look away. I can hear each bone popping back into place until his head has cranked around to face me.

On reflex I guess, I lift the bat to swing again, but this time he smacks it right out of my hands.

“ _Stop that,_ would you?” He snaps as the bat hits the opposite wall with a crash that makes me flinch.

“Sorry—sorry!” I stutter, my heart pounding in panic. “I didn’t—I—”

“No, _I’m_ sorry, Chavez.” My name. He knows my name… Well, of course he knows my name. He’s been sharing a room with me for a month because he was a _fucking cat! What the fuck?_ He steps back with a surprisingly good-natured smile. “I should have remembered how much my face invites violence.”

“No—I…” On the contrary, he has the most disturbingly handsome face I’ve ever seen… okay, smackable, sure, maybe, but only because it’s so upsettingly attractive. “I-I—”

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“H-how do I know that?” I demand, stumbling sideways off the bed to put as much distance as I can between us. “What—”

“Ms. Chavez, I’ve been living in your house, right under your nose, for a month,” he says in exasperation. “If I was going to do anything to hurt you or your family, don’t you think I would have done it by now?”

I just stand there staring at him, the air pumping too quickly in and out of my lungs, my hands shaking, because that actually makes a lot of sense. That makes perfect sense… given the circumstances… the circumstances. Oh, God, Jocelyn, breathe. Just breathe.

“Okay… okay…” I take a step back and then another. “C-could you just… give me a second?” I hold up a finger. “I’m just going to…” I turn around, slap myself on the cheeks and blink a few times very hard. That’s usually sufficient to wake me up from a dream, but the fifth time I open my eyes, I’m still standing in my room wide awake. And when I turn around, the man who was Muffin is still there.

“Oh…” I let out my breath in a measured huff and grasp one of my bedposts for support. “Okay…”

Trying to even out my breathing, I stand there for a moment and just stare at him, letting my eyes pick him apart from head to toe, thinking maybe if I stare at him long enough, study him closely enough, I’ll find something to indicate that he is _not_ in fact real.

He’s a young man—at least he looks pretty young—slender and tall, with sharp handsome features cut in mirage-like skin, and dark, _dark_ black eyes that seem to be laughing still… _always_ _laughing_. A playful smirk sits at the corner of his mouth like it lives there and he has a sweeping mess of elegantly untidy raven hair that fans out, featherlike, around his ears. It’s the kind of hair you want to reach out and flatten, but also looks strangely— _annoyingly_ —good somehow.

“Wh-what… what _are_ you?” I ask cautiously.

“What am I?”He chuckles, a low, dark sound—as charming as it is disturbing—that sends an odd rippling feeling down my spine. “Isn’t _that_ the million-dollar question.” He grins, his white teeth sharp and shining against the darkness of the rest of him. “I am your cat. Of course, I am also a coyote, and a raven, and a human when I choose… Let me see… what are some of the ways you humans have tried to define me…?” He muses, leaning lazily back against the dresser. “ _A turbulent deity of wind and storms;_

_endless in my transformations…_

_The entire universe is his farm;_

_his merchandise all God’s creation…_ ”

“What? Is… is this a riddle?” I ask uncertainly

He ignores me, smiling up at the ceiling and continuing in a rolling, singsong voice:

“ _I am the courier of the immortals, quick as death;_

 _the clever and crafty, bitter beyond all bitterness;_ ”

And in my daze, I find myself focusing more on the crisp way his lips and tongue accentuate each syllable than on the words themselves.

 _“A spider_ , _a serpent, and a rabbit;_

 _evil in spirit, fickle in habit_.

_I am miscreant, liar_

_—thief of fruit—and thief of fire;_

_he who slinks in blackest night;_

_he who turns wrong into right;_

_he who throws a stone today_

_and kills a bird yesterday._ ”

He pauses to tilt his head at me. “Figured it out yet?”

“I… um…” _No._ No, I _haven’t._ I have no idea what he’s talking about. It sort of sounds like he’s quoting poetry, but—

“ _I am he whom some call the mischief monger_ ,” he offers next, raising his eyebrows at me. “ _The first father of falsehoods, and blemish of all the gods and men_.”

And I _know_ that line. I’ve read it somewhere before… something I read while researching for _Roads Apart…_

“ _Loki_ …” I say after a moment and find myself edging back away from him even as my eyes widen to take in more of him. That was Snorri Sturlson’s description of Loki from the Prose Edda—at least one of the translations. In fact, I’m pretty sure I once prefaced a oneshot with that exact quote…

“I have been given many names,” the man sighed. “ _Loki_ is one of them.”

“So, you… you’re… the Norse god of mischief?”

The man lets out a short laugh. “Do I look _Norse_ to you, Chavez?”

“I—um—” Well, now that he mentions it, no. His eyes and hair are the darkest I’ve ever seen and his skin is kind of tan in hue. If anything, he looks… well, now that I consider it, his elegant, angular features aren’t particularly characteristic of anysingle race I can think of. He’s straight-up impossible to place.

“My character has been observed, appropriated, and reinterpreted by many cultures,” he says before I can continue tripping over my tongue in confusion, “including the old Norse. All have their different names for me, only a small handful of which would be familiar to you.”

“What? What names?”

“Well,” He scoots back to sit down cross-legged on top of my dresser, nonchalantly sweeping my some of my unfolded clothes onto the floor… much as he did when he was a cat. “To today’s voodoo practitioners, I am Eshu, Eleggua, or Exu depending on the region. I am Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, to the Han Chinese, and a whole slew of little, cunning animals to the indigenous people of this continent… Coyote, Raven, Rabbit, Spider…”

 “So you… you’re some kind of all-encompassing magical trickster?” That would explain the shape-shifting… but that’s about the only thing it explains.

He lounges back on the dresser, leaning into the heels of his hands. “Something like that.”

“So, you’re telling me… you’re a _god_?” I kind of want to laugh, but there isn’t enough breath in me.

“God. Orisha. Angel. Spirit. Whatever you like to call your virtually immortal, sometimes-worshipped embodiments of concepts existing in the human world.”

For a long moment I can only stare at him. He’s serious… at least I think he is; it’s hard to tell with that half-mocking smirk on his distractingly attractive face, but… _the God of Mischief_? Okay, I read a lot of mythology when I was younger—I still actually use a lot of it in my fanfiction—but I never at any point considered that it might be _real_ … because it’s _not_.I’m _Catholic_ for fuck’s sake! I _know_ there’s only one God. It’s Him I would have expected to visit me—if _any_ god was going to—not this… this… smirking pagan weirdness. Coyote. Loki… those are just stories… they were only ever stories to me… fictions to escape into when reality got too dull or sucky. They were never something that was supposed to show up in my bedroom and start talking to me.

My hand lifts reflexively to close around the cross around my neck… but of course, it isn’t there—I haven’t worn it regularly for a few years now—and all I’m left with a handful of shirt over my pounding heart.

“You’re lying,” I say without half the conviction I should have.

“Either that or you’ve gone insane,” he says cheerfully. “Either way, joke’s on you.”

“You’re not real,” I insist, still talking more to myself than the shadowy man I refuse to believe is a god. “I’ve seen you before, in my dreams. You’re the man at the fork in the road…” the man Lucy ripped open with her teeth… This is just another dream. I don’t care how real it feels. It’s a _dream_.

“Indeed… but I believe one of your online friends pointed out to you that the players that appear in human dreams are people they’ve seen somewhere, at some point. Tell yourself whatever you want. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m here with you—that I’ve _been_ with you for quite some time.”

“But…” Even if I _have_ seen his face before, that doesn’t explain how he’s somehow, also _Muffin_. “You can’t… y-you were a _cat_!”

“I have many forms. The creature you call Muffin has been one of my favorites lately.”

“Wait,” I say slowly. If he can shift form, that means… “You… _you_ were that raven that was watching me that day.”

“Crow, actually. My favored raven form would be conspicuously large in this region, so I downsized, but yes, that was me.”

“You’ve been watching me this whole time, even at my dad’s house.”

“Very good.”

“And if you’re the crow, you…” My eyes trail down to his inky black coat and I suddenly remember where I’ve seen him in real life. “You’re that guy… the one who was outside at the bike racks. _You_ ripped out Alejo’s brakes.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“And you made him crash… into _yourself_?” I say, confused.

“At precisely the right place, at precisely the right time, just as your mother and sister were pulling into the driveway. It took quite a bit of finagling, but I don’t expect you to understand the finer points of my craft. Not yet anyway.”

“But why?”

“I needed little Gabriella to take pity on me and your mother to allow her to keep me in the house; the easiest way to do that was with an injury and a pair of big adorable eyes. I’ve found that works astonishingly well on most people these days.”

“So… was your paw even broken?”

“Initially, yes,” he says. “But I can put myself back together quite quickly… when I’m in good condition.”

“But I… I still don’t get it. How does being in our house help you with anything? What do you want here?”

“Much as I am loathe to admit it, I need your help. I have a bit of a situation and I require human assistance since divine assistance is out.” He frowns. “It was out a long time ago.”

“ _Divine_ assistance? You mean like—”

“As you probably could have surmised, I am not the only deity in existence. I am, in fact, part of an extensive pantheon of gods and demons… or at least I was.”

“ _Was_ …?” I repeat. “What happened to them?”

“They were all captured, brainwashed, and put into a trance state… all except me. But, do let me begin at the beginning of the story,” he says before I can ask how. “It will all make much more sense… I hope.”

“Why should I listen to anything you have to say?” I ask warily. And, fuck, I shouldn’t even be _talking_ to him, should I? Why am I even indulging the _idea_ that any of this pagan heresy could be real…?

“Because you love stories,” he says, leaning in, his eyes alight. “And I have a _fascinating_ one for you; what does it matter if it’s true? You’ll want to hear it either way.”

“Okay…”

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the usual human genesis stories—I’m sure you’ve heard them in that _church_ you mortals seem so fond of these days—: In the beginning, God—or _Gods_ —made the seas, and made the land, and then made people…”

“Yes.” I say slowly.

“Mine goes a little differently. At the beginning of _my_ story, there were people. And out of people, were born the Sentient Gods… myself included. There were undoubtedly gods before us; some of us Sentientsmay even have existed before humanity, in some younger, primal form; we don’t know… but we first became aware of our own existence when the first humans became aware of theirs. All we know for certain is that the first of us woke with the first sparks of human consciousness and that each of us is the manifestation of a distinct part of human existence. Love, lust, hunger… _mischief_.”

 His black eyes flick up to meet mine and a smile curls his mouth. “And, as you hairless hominids evolved, as human communities grew more complex and diverse, developing what you today would call ‘society,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘civilization,’ more and more of us burst from the nothingness to fill these new nuances of human life; gods for all different types of art, philosophy, and language, gods of agriculture and trade, gods of politics and innuendo, gods for all shades of religious faith and practice, each occupying his—or her—unique place in human affairs. Many gods have sprung forth and then died away with specific cultural practices and beliefs; some of us are deeply entrenched staples of human nature that have been here since the beginning and _will be_ here until…” His silken voice falters for the first time and for just a moment he breaks eye contact to look at his knees “the end.”

The last words are so quiet and fragile I almost don’t hear them. The muscles of his throat move in a swallow as he looks up at me again, and in that moment he looks so inexplicably vulnerable… so sincere that I’m almost ready to believe everything he’s told me… _almost_.

“And you’re saying…” I look up at the man before me—the God of Mischief—“You’re saying that you’re one of these gods… that you’ve been here since the _beginning of humanit_ y?”

“A story, a story,” he waves his hand with a smile so relaxed and cheerful it all but washes away that last flicker of unease. “It may be true; it may not. It doesn’t matter.”

“Wh-what?” I stutter, taken aback. “But—you just—”

“Keep your beliefs about your One God and the beginning of the world if they make you feel better. All that matters now, in this moment, is that the divine beings I have described to you exist, _I_ exist, you exist, and we are all of us—gods _and_ humans—in serious danger.”

“What? Why?” I ask, still a bit thrown off by his sudden shift of tone. “What danger?” Looking out the window, it doesn’t exactly look like the apocalypse is upon us or anything.

“What danger indeed,” the god says. “So begins the second part of this story, the part concerning you, Jocelyn Chavez. _This_ part of the story begins with a very old deity. Not as old as me, but few of the Sentients are. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call him by his first and most common name; Fate.”

“Fate?” I repeat. “So—what does that mean? What does he do—or… embody exactly?”

“Nothing useful,” the God of Mischief says with an irritated roll of his eyes. “ _Never_ anything useful. Essentially, Fate is the universe’s glorified schedule master. He writes down everything that will happen, based on his allegedly flawless foresight. Then, by his power and that of the greater universe, it comes to pass… most of the time. In truth, he’s never been very good at his job. _I_ have always been of the opinion that he should not _have_ a job. He contributes nothing. The human world would not be notably better or worse off without him. It’s all just… bureaucracy.” He sighs. “The gods have always been attached to their top-heavy administration. And you foolish humans persist in your delusions of divine plans and predestination, so he exists and the gods at the top love their over-managing bureaucracy, so he has always held a high position.”

“Okay…” I say. “So, you’re not a fan. But… what does this Fate guy have to do with endangering humanity?”

“Well…” the god pinches the bridge of his nose with a long grimace. “How do I put this…? He’s kind of…  imprisoned all of the gods and mind-controlled them into doing his bidding.”

“What? _All_ of them?”

“All except me.” He offers me a wry smile. “You’re looking at the last free deity left to humanity.”

“What? But—but _how_? You said he was a glorified _schedule master_. Don’t you have, like, gods of war and fighting and stuff who are way stronger than he is?”

“There are _many_ gods with greater mental, physical, and magical power than Fate,” he says. “But however our dear schedule master achieved this complete domination of the pantheon, it wasn’t by brute force.”

“ _However_ he achieved it…” I repeat. “So, you don’t know how he did it?”

“I have my theories,” the god shrugs. “I’m afraid I was a bit _preoccupied_ for the greater part of his take-over. From what I know of Fate’s usual snail’s-pace, it probably took him at least a hundred years to set up. But by the time I arrived on the scene, he already had all of the other deities in his clutches; the only thing I could do was run for my life.”

“Wait. What do you mean when you say you were ‘preoccupied’? Where were you for more than _a hundred years_?”

The god’s expression doesn’t change, but I sense a tightening in his frame and his voice is strangely flat when he answers, “That doesn’t matter.”

“Seriously? But—”

“The past is irrelevant to our present dilemma. The only thing of importance at this moment that Fate quite literally holds all the power in the world in his hands. He stands one step away from absolute control of the entire human world; the only thing he has left to do is kill me.”

“Kill you?” I say. “But… why? If he’s brainwashing and controlling all the other gods… why doesn’t he just do the same to you?”

“Because _I_ am unlike any other god,” he says impatiently. “For one thing, I am singularly difficult to capture. For another, I am the paramount deity of subversion and chaos, of all that cannot be predicted, contained, or controlled. Fate seeks absolute order and I am _dis_ order itself. To control me _is_ to kill me. And to have me live is to have only incomplete control of the world.”

“Oh… okay,” I say… I think I understand. “Of all the gods, _you’re_ his polar opposite. So, you have to die for his plan to work.”

“Essentially.”

“Okay… and what happens then? If he _does_ kill you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, now would I?” the god says with a derisive edge in his voice. “I’ve never _been_ dead before—not a hundred percent, anyway—and I don’t care to try it. But let’s think about it for a moment, shall we? Your lot in my absence… Seeing how Fate now has the gods of war, art, government, and everything under the sun within his control, he is no longer subject to any error. Human affairs will play out exactly as he plans and writes them down. The world’s population will become nothing more than puppets to act out his narrative… whatever that may be. Maybe he’ll write something fun for you, but I doubt it; he never _was_ very imaginative.”

“Okay…” I say slowly, the gears in my brain working hard. “But… if he’s _Fate_ … if he writes destiny… aren’t we _already_ just playing out his narrative? What’s the difference?”

“The _difference_ ,” the god says almost angrily, “is _me_. Or did you not understand that the first time I explained? Fate has always had a margin of error—those things he writes down that don’t come to pass, but that margin can only exist while I live because _I_ create it.”

“But… why? Why _only_ you?”

“Because I am the unexpected, the opposition to all odds… the _unfatable_. Other beings can throw Fate for a loop once in a while, but that isn’t foremost and fundamental to their nature, so being under Fate’s control does not undermine their existence the way it would mine. Defying the certain is the essence of my being as the sower of dissent and bringer of chaos. Without me—and without any of the other gods possessing their own free will—humanity will stagnate; no more new ideas, no more revolution, no more dissent. Short version: I am humanity’s last hope of self-determination… of diversity, of progress, of _change_ of any kind. The spark that drives you to take control of your own destiny; _that_ iswhat you lose if Fate succeeds in killing me.”

“Whoa… okay…” When he puts it that way, it doesn’t sound great… but it also doesn’t sound like the end of the world. We’d still be alive. We’d still be safe. From the way this supposed god puts it, barely anything would change. Our destinies would just be more controlled. No chaos, no uncertainty… If anything, it sounds like it might actually be _better_ … According to Catholicism, that’s the way the world is supposed to be, isn’t it?

“I… I’m sorry this guy’s trying to kill you,” I say slowly. “But that honestly doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Really?” The God of Mischief lets out a short laugh, but he isn’t smiling. “I was expecting a little more outrage at the idea that all free will was about to be erased from the world. At least a little _annoyance_. You would really be content to live in a world in which your sole purpose was to act out some boring scribe’s _grand plan_?”

“I already believe in a grand plan.”

“Of _course_ you do.” His eyes narrow faintly. But not just that… they _darken_. I realize that for the first time, he’s _angry_. The expression only lasts for a flicker before he shakes it off with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “Always so simple-minded you humans. Can you not follow what I’ve told you of Fate and his plan to its logical conclusion? Do you not understand the real threat here?”

“The real threat?” I ask.

“Fate is a perfectionist. And the human race is anything but perfect. Even without me there to muck things up for you, you’ll never be perfect puppets. Some of you will still be weak, ugly, asymmetrical, diseased… And he knows that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that, given control of the whole world, Fate will undoubtedly try to replace you with a better breed of puppet on which to enact his ideas of perfection.”

“So… he’ll get rid of us.”

“As far as I can gather, that is his plan. He wants to wipe human imperfection from the face of the Earth. And, yes, that means you, your parents, and dear, sweet Gabriella will die.”

 

“What?” I feel my blood go cold. “You—someone has to stop him!”

“ _Now_ she comes around.”,” he says in exasperation.

“Can’t you do something?” I demand. “Can’t you stop him?”

“Well, I tried,” he says. “But shockingly, fighting one to several _hundred_ hasn’t been working out too well for me… which is why I’ve come to you.”

“Me? … Wh-what do you want _me_ to do?”

“You’re going to help me.”

“What… _how_?”

“I don’t quite know yet. But I do know that you’ll be able to do it?”

“What now? I’m… you think I’m going to… look, I don’t think you understand. I’m not someone who can help you with… with this kind of thing. Like—did you just randomly pick me? Did you even _think_ about this?”

“I did, actually. Several months in hiding and I hadn’t gotten anywhere with a plan to take down Fate and his brainwashed army of gods. I realized that this wasn’t something I could do on my own. So I set about searching on a computer at a public library… That’s when I ran across you… or rather _The Purple Magpie_.”

“The Purple Magpie. You mean you found me by my blog?”

“No. First I found your _fanfiction_.”

“You… you’ve read my fanfiction?” I say blankly.

“Well, it was the first time I had physically used a computer, so I’ll admit the searching process was a little slow-going and… less than efficient. Once I figured out how to use the search engine, I of course wanted to find out how the world had been looking at me for the past millennium or so.”

“So, the first thing you searched was yourself?”

“Several of my many names, yes.”

“ _Narcissist_.”

“Yes,” he says simply and continues. “After checking up on ‘Eshu,’ and ‘Anansi,’ and ‘Iktomi,’ and discovering that some of my more ancient names had been lost to time entirely, I looked up ‘Loki’ and I found—”

“ _Roads Apart_ ,” I cover my face in my hands. “Jesus, you _read that_?”

“Beginning to end,” he grins.

“I-I was—that was a few years ago, okay,” I say into my hands, feeling my cheeks reddening. “I didn’t—”

“I liked it.”

“You wh-what?”

“Excellent twist at the end, with the body-switching. I’d have spun it a little differently, but… good. You have a delicious writing style. I can see why so many find your work palatable, despite its length and unconventional structure.”

“Oh my god,” I mutter into my muffling hands.

“Yes?” He says mildly.

“God, this is so fucking weird.” No one ever critiques my fanfiction to my face… least of all its subject. “This can’t be happening.” But how am I supposed to argue reality with a man who was a cat when I came in the door? “And, after that, you… you picked me? Of all the crappy fanfic writers, of all the billions of people on the Internet, you picked _me_?”

“I did.”

I let my hands slide off my face to look at him in bewilderment. “ _Why?_ ”

He just leans back, smirking. “My reasons are my own, little one. I followed you for a few days as a crow, calculating a way to get closer to you until I devised Operation Wounded Kitten. I knew your sister would take me in. She’s kinder and more trusting than you.”

“Wait… you haven’t been creeping on my little sister, have you?” I demand, ready to pick up the baseball bat again.

“I don’t ‘creep on’ children.”

“No? Just adults?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, _that’s_ better,” I say sarcastically.

“It is, actually. In this day and age, mortals above the age of twelve or so tend to fly into an absolute panic when they see something they can’t explain; say, a cat turn into a man. Children are a little more accepting and a little smarter, which makes them significantly less fun to mess with.”

“Kids are _less fun to mess with?_ ” I repeat incredulously. “ _That’s_ why you don’t stalk them?”

“I don’t _need_ to follow children,” he says. “They have enough curiosity, and imagination, and innocent cruelty in them to fuel their existence and mine without my ever pressing the matter. No, it’s the humorless, predictable adults of the world that require my pestering. Adults, adults…” he sighs. “So dull, so rigid in their perceptions of the possible and the impossible. I was hoping you, ‘ _fanfiction god_ ,’ might be a little different.”

“Okay, I get it, I’m a close-minded idiot,” I say. “Still… couldn’t you have just skipped the whole shape-shifting and bike-crashing and just told me? Or would that have made too much sense?”

“I was observing you in your natural environment.”

“Okay—but—why as a cat? You scratched me, you… you _bit me,_ ” I say, glaring at him.

“You tried to force me into a kitty carrier,” he returns indignantly. “I don’t care for closed spaces.”

“You got in eventually,” I point out.

“Only because I knew that would wound and enrage you more than continued resistance.”

“Wow… you’re a dick.”

“Yes,” he says without even bothering to disagree. “But that’s not the point. I took the form of a cat, so I could observe you more closely. I needed to make sure you were the one.”

“ _The one?”_ I almost laugh. So far all he’s seen me do is flop down on my bed, cry, blog, fangirl, cry some more, and eat too much ice cream. “What are you talking about?”

 “This moment has been foretold by gods more ancient than I.” His voice takes on a deep, almost ghostly resonance as he looks into my eyes. “That in the gods’ darkest hour, when one stood against many, help would come in the form of a small human in the guise of a magpie… _you_ , Jocelyn Chavez.”

“What?” I feel dizzy… weirdly light. “There’s… a _prophecy_ about me?” When the words come out of my mouth, it sounds insanely stupid. But still, could it… could it be true? If a troublesome housecat can turn into a god, then anything’s possible, right? Maybe I could be—No. No, the God of Mischief being a real thing I might be able to accept. Someone like me being the Chosen One in a battle between gods, no. That makes way too little sense to be real.

But the dark god seems intent on pressing the matter.

“This is your destiny, Jocelyn Chavez,” he breathes in that weirdly entrancing voice. “You were born to do this. You’re the only one who can save the gods and humanity.”

And part of me wants to believe him, to think that that could be true, but— “No,” I shake my head. “This is… this is ridiculous. This doesn’t happen.”

“You’ve seen a few things today you thought couldn’t happen,” he points out. “Can you not accept that this is just another one of them?”

“No… I… Okay, a cat turning into a god—I—okay, fine, you got me. I guess it’s real or-if I’m dreaming, it’s happening in my dream. Whatever. But whether it’s a dream or not, I’m _not_ buying this Chosen One, Mary Sue bullshit.”

“Mary Sue bullshit?” he repeats innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I can’t be the Chosen One because there are no magic prophecies, there is no destiny. You said so yourself, like, three minutes ago when you were yammering about how that Fate guy is such a hack. Life doesn’t work that way and _good stories_ don’t have people like me as the main character.”

“You only think that because you don’t believe in yourself.” He takes my hands in his and I feel my heart flutter faintly, knocking my thoughts out of alignment. “You are special, Jocelyn Chavez,” he says and his eyes are a little too earnest.

It takes me a moment to regain my bearings… “I don’t believe you.”

“Come on, Chavez. I know for a fact, this is one of your fantasies.”

“No it’s not.” I pull my hands out of his, offended. “I don’t write crappy self-insert supernatural romances. And I _don’t_ write _Chosen One_ narratives. They’re boring, they’re lazy, and they’re just a dumb excuse to get some underqualified, unlikeable every-man—or every- _girl_ — into the middle of the action, so that dumb average readers can project themselves into the narrative and feel special even though they’re not! So, you can’t use some Chosen One prophecy drivel on me because I _hate_ stories like that because I _know_ I’m not special and I don’t try to pretend I am.”

“ _Really_? Then you didn’t write this?”

With a flourish he pulls a notebook seemingly out of thin air. It’s a little notebook… purple, with some Lisa Frank knock-off unicorns chasing each other across the cover… that… that’s _my notebook_! My God, I haven’t seen that thing for _years_. I thought I lost it when we moved! Where the hell did he even fine it?

“A _hem_.” He flips to a page somewhere in the middle. “ _The dark-haired wood elf looked up in amazment. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing._

_“You have to come with us,” Legolas said. “You are the one who will save Middle Earth from the great evil.”_

_“But how can that be?” She asked in confusion._

_“Because, Jociel, you are the_ chosen one.””

“Oh my God…” I’m not sure if my hands are pressed to my mouth right now out of mortification that I actually named a protagonist ‘Jociel’ or because that’s my _first fanfiction_. The very first. Like, before I even knew that there were places online to share crap like that. I thought I’d lost it years ago, but there it is, in my meticulous fourth-grade cursive…

“ _Jociel didn’t know what to do,_ ” the alleged God of Mischief continues as I feel my cheeks heating up again. “ _She couldn’t let Middle Earth parish and she wanted to help Legolas. He seemed really nice. But she also didn’t want to leave her home in the woods. Escpecially when she knew her sister needed her.”_

“Okay, that’s enough,” I cringe. I’d forgotten what a terrible writer baby Jocelyn was. “You can stop now.” But he doesn’t.

_““It is true,” Gandalf said in his wise voice. “She is the one the prophecy spoke of. The one who will bing about the end of the Dark Lord. She must go with you.””_

“I said _stop!_ ” I make a swipe for the notebook, but he dances out of my reach and continues:

 _““Go with you where?” Jociel asked._ ”

And at this point I feel like each new phrase is physically hurting me with its terribleness.

_““To Mirkwood,” Legolas said._

_“Why?” Jociel questioned._

_“Because…””_ He lets his voice drop to a dramatic whisper as he looks at me over the top of the notebook. ““YOU _are the lost princess!_ ””

“I get it!” I shout in humiliated rage. “You’ve made your point. I’m a terrible writer. Now, _give_ me that!”

“ _“A princess!?!””_ he gasps as I attack him, grabbing frantically for that stupid notebook. “ _“How can_ I _be the Mirkwood princess?”_ ”

“ _Give_ it to me!” I try to pull the notebook from his hands, but he twists away and holds it out of my reach—fuck, why do I have to be so short—and keeps reading:

“ _Jociel was very confused but Gandalf kindly explaned, “The prophecy that told of the end of the Dark Lord said that the princess would be found—_ ””

He cuts off as I grab onto the sleeves of that inexplicably black coat, succeeding in dragging his arms down, bringing the notebook almost within reach. But in the next second, he’s pulled away again, retreating back toward the bed as those dopey-ass unicorns laugh at me from the cover.

“ _“—would be found in the Forest of Light with the magic necklace of a hundred moon-gems around her neck.””_

 _Fuck,_ not the moon-gem necklace!

“ _“But I just found this necklace by the Crystal Stream!””_ He reads in an actually really upsettingly good impression of my own voice and that’s it. I tackle him. “ _Jociel turned to_ —ugh!” He lets out a rather human grunt as I plow into him and we both topple down onto the bed.

“What are you doing?” He protests as I claw my way to the notebook with single-minded determination. “We haven’t even gotten to the part about the magic moon-power!”

He holds the notebook over his head to keep it out of my reach, but now that we’re horizontal, he’s lost his height advantage. Scrambling forward, I rip it out of his hands and fling it away. _God, my ass!_ I think manically as I fling it away. He can’t even win a game of keep-away with a pint-sized mortal nerd.

“ _Ha!_ ” I throw in his face… only to realize that that face is less than an inch from mine… also that I’m lying on top of the God of Mischief with my legs straddling his hips and my hands planted on either side of his head.

The face in front of my nose breaks into an amused and entirely too charming grin. “Princess, _please!_ At least buy me a drink first!”

 


	9. The Lousy Premise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update. Here's another chapter that underwent a lot of last-minute changes that have put it in desperate need of editing, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _Greek myths are fucking great because their gods are so human. They argue, they fuck up at things, they make fun of each other, they piss each other off, it’s great, there’s so much human interaction and then Christianity comes in like **that guy** and is all like “oh my god is infallible and knows everything and immortal and everywhere at once and you can’t see it but its totally there and stronger than everything” shut the fuck up Christianity go take a writing class_”  
—dragondicks.tumblr.com

“ _did you just call the Christian god a Mary Sue_ ”  
—prismatic-bell.tumblr.com

 

Now, I knew this day was going to be uncomfortable when it started, but I really didn’t think that it was going to lead to me with a laughing pagan abomination pinned to my bed. I scramble back off the alleged god as fast as I can, before I can get a chance to think about the way his hips felt under me or whether or not my face brushed against his hair while we were grappling for that notebook. I fall sideways off the bed in a clumsy flail of limbs and curl up on myself with my arms around my knees and my face burning pink with mortification.

“ _Ay_ …” the dark creature grunts and I hear the creak of springs as he sits up and swings his legs to the floor beside me. “Your romancing could really use work.”

“I wasn’t romancing,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Hell of a tackle for someone your size, though. I respect that.”

My head is pressed into my knees, but I sense him scrunch down on the floor beside me.

“Oh!” He lets out a laugh that is somehow mocking and sympathetic at the same time. “Your ears get really _red_ when you’re embarrassed, don’t they?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” I growl into my knees, feeling like I might start crying any second.

“Come now, Princess Jociel.” He nudges his shoulder amicably into mine nearly knocking me over sideways. “You just got the better of a divine being with your bare hands. And you didn’t even need a magic power necklace to do it. Still so sure you’re not the ‘princess the prophecy spoke of’?”

“Call me Princess one more time and I’ll kill you,” I say thickly.

“Under _stood_ , your majesty.”                        

“How… where did you even find that thing?”

“What? Your little notebook? In the basement, by accident. I was looking for food.”

“There’s no food in the basement.”

“Is if you’re an antsy cat. You know, your mother had a serious rat problem.”

“Oh God…” That is _not_ something I needed to know.

“ _Had_ ,” he says hastily. “You’re welcome.”

“You mean, you… you _ate_ them?”

“Only a couple. Then they all got scared off. Rats are smart like that.” He smiles, his teeth suddenly too sharp. “Smarter than humans, anyway.”

“Okay, first, _ew_. And second, congratulations, you found some garbage fanfiction I wrote when I was nine. So what?”

“Ten.”

“What?”

“You were ten. Even then you were meticulous about dating your work.”

“Okay, ten, whatever. Everyone writes garbage when they’re ten.”

“Why do you call it garbage?”

“Because I didn’t understand good stories—or—what _made_ them good. I didn’t understand what actually made a good hero, good villains, a good conflict… Good stories aren’t made of pretty men who just drop in out of nowhere and heap praise and power on some stupid, characterless idiot who’s done nothing to deserve it. Good stories aren’t all unicorns, and elf princes, and shit without any _consequences_. There have to be flaws. There have to be stakes. That’s what makes it _interesting_.”

“You could say there has to be a… margin of error,” he smiles.

I pause for a moment as my brain catches up with him. “Okay… okay, I see what you did there,” I point a finger in his face. “You’re trying to make me sound like a hypocrite, but I’m not—I’m talking about dumb little stories that are supposed to be fun, not real life. Adventures, good heroes, good villains, those are for fiction. _Real life_ is supposed to be neat, and clean, and safe as you can make it.”

“Is it?” He raises his eyebrows.

“See?” I point again. “See, this is why I don’t believe you. I’m not saying I wouldn’t believe this Mary Sue destiny crap. I’m not saying I don’t _want_ to believe it… I’m saying I don’t believe it from _you_ , Mr. _Unfatable_ Margin of all Error. You, of all people should know that this destiny, Chosen One stuff you’re telling me is a flimsy, _terrible_ premise for a story.”

The smile starts slowly. “I think you and I might get along after all.”

“So does that mean you’ll tell me the reason you chose me?… the _real_ reason you chose me.”

“It won’t be as pretty as the first one I gave you. It certainly won’t make you feel as good.”

“I don’t care. Please… I just want to know.”

“Do you? I could just wipe your memory with a twiddle of my fingers, make you believe the nice lie I made you.”

“You could…?”

“Child’s play. If that’s what you really want.”

“So… you’re retroactively giving me the choice between the red pill and the blue pill?”

“I don’t know what those are.”

“Seriously? You mean you’ve never seen _The Matrix_?”

“As I said, I’ve been—”

“Red pill.”

“What?”

“The truth,” I say before I get a chance to think about it because I’m sure if I think about it and really weigh my options, I’ll take the easier one. I know I will. I always do. But I have to know the truth before my fear gets the better of me. I’m too fucking curious not to have it. “I want the truth.”

“Very well, then,” he smiles. “But only because you won’t like it. The story that brought me here began a few months back, when I returned to this world to find it all-but-conquered by the God of Fate.”

“Returned to this world?” There again, with that unexplained absence.

“The second my feet hit the ground, I was being hunted. It became clear within moments that I was grossly outnumbered and outgunned. I knew I would need help— _some kind of help_ — to take on that army of deities. Now, obviously with every sentient deity under the bastard’s control, I couldn’t expect any divine aid. But not only that, Fate had already fortified the whole world against me, cut me off from my only other potential source of power and allies… the human world. You see, the true reason I chose you has very little to do with me and a great deal to do with our aspiring world dictator.”

“You mean Fate… but… how?”

“Having control over all the deities means he has eyes everywhere… to an even greater extent than he did when he was an obnoxious scribe. He uses these eyes to keep tabs on any potential threat within the human world, all the volatile individuals, all the powerful, the strong, the rebellious. Every country’s military, every town’s police force, every community leader, every person with a skill or inclination that might threaten his control is being watched ‘round the clock.”

“How do you know that?”

“It wasn’t difficult to figure out. Every time I tried to approach a human I thought might be of use to me—an influential politician, a military strategist, a scrappy back-alley arsonist—every time I tried to hack into a government intelligence website or walk into an important building, a legion of gods would descend on me. I needed to find a little pocket of the human world Fate would never, _never_ think to look, someone utterly invisible to him. So, I started thinking… _who could I go to without drawing attention? What sort of person would raise no alerts on Fate’s radar?_

“It had to be someone who was neither an asset nor a threat… someone with no power in his eyes. Fate tends to discount power that can’t be measured in physical strength, or wealth, or social influence. So, a shut-in. But shut-ins with no interest in the world outside their own little space are almost invariably narrow-minded fools. An intellectual, then. A _nerd_. But modern nerds, I observed, are often easily recognized and lauded by others for their great intelligence and I couldn’t have that. So, I thought, which nerds are not given that kind of credit? Mostly, it seemed, the female ones. A female nerd, then.

“What sort of female nerd? I thought one from a racial minority might be good since the minority is often discredited and overlooked. But then, I thought, narrow-minded people like Fate and those he employs are wary of anyone visibly different from the majority. That’s what led me to you, my Purple Magpie… a pint-sized, mixed-race, female nerd, able to pass as a member of the majority, virtually invisible to most, skilled only in a medium no one would give any credit, with social connections on a website that few people take seriously.”

“Wow… so… you picked me because I was pathetic in all the right ways?”

“That’s the gist of it. You are just what I needed: a spineless individual, acquiescing, predictable, absolutely harmless. Someone who Fate would dismiss, just like everyone else who sees her.”

He’s right. That does make me feel like crap… though I can’t say it doesn’t make sense. The only reason I make a good ally is that I’m the last person anyone would willingly choose as an ally.

“Great.” I press my lips together. “Awesome.”

“Truth never tastes as good, does it?” He says in a sympathetic voice that comes off a little too pleased. “It pays to specialize lies.”

“Well… I’m not really surprised,” I say bitterly. “I guess you wouldn’t come to me unless you were looking for someone totally useless.”

“I didn’t say useless.”

“No, but you _heavily_ implied it.”

“And what are you going to do about that?” He raises his eyebrows.

“I… so… why pick me over all the other bland, unthreatening people in the world?”

“Why indeed.”

“I—just—what are you expecting me to do to help you?”

“What indeed.”

“Okay, but… look… Mr. God of Mischief… whoever you are, what if I don’t want anything to do with any of this? What if I just want you out of my house?”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”

“What are you—Listen, I’m sorry you’ve gotten yourself into a mess with your god buddies, but I don’t want it here. I don’t want any trouble… for me or my family.”

“Sorry, kiddo. It’s too late for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the trouble’s already found you. I do my best to operate outside of Fate’s gaze, but believe me when I say that is no easy feat. By this point, he will almost certainly have noticed my interest in you. Even if he doesn’t know yet what I intend, he will have surmised that you are an important part of my plan. And he _will_ come for you… if he hasn’t started already.”

“Come for me?” I repeat. “And… do what, exactly?”

“Well, the simplest way for him to remove you from the equation would of course be to kill you… and possibly your family as well, just for good measure.”

“ _What?_ You’re saying that you’ve put me and my whole family in danger for your stupid—for this fight between you and this stupid Fate guy?”

“Yes.”

I’ve never slapped anyone before, but before I’m even sure what I’m doing, I’ve lifted my hand and swung my open palm into that shadowy smiling face. It hurts more than I expected—though maybe that’s because it’s not a normal man I’m slapping—the sting throbbing in my hand well after his head snaps to the side and I lower my arm. I hope it hurt him as much as it did me as I all but scream, “How _dare_ you!” my voice shrill with emotion. “You put my _family_ in danger! You—”

“The whole _world_ is in danger, Ms. Chavez.” The dark god says through his teeth. “I made a decision.” His dark eyes flick back up to fix on mine. “Now it’s your turn.”

“So, what?” I demand, my rage still hot. “I’m supposed to help you or—or what? The world’s going to end?”

“Quite possibly,” he says, lifting a hand to touch his cheek where I slapped him. “Not for sure—nothing is for sure—but quite possibly.”

“This is ridiculous!” I growl.

“Yes, you’ve said that… several times now.”

“ _Everything_ you’ve told me is ridiculous. Why should I believe any of it?”

“Well,” he licks his lips. “I—”

“Fuck, if you _are_ trickster god, like you say you are, I _know_ I shouldn’t believe anything you say! You’re a god of lies.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“But what?” I demand. “If you’re the god of mischief _I’m_ familiar with, you’re not exactly the most trustworthy, cuddly little god.”

“Aren’t I?” He blinks innocently, looking unbelievably like Muffin the cat for just a moment. “Now, what gave you that idea?” and I can’t quite tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.

I decide to answer anyway, for the sake of my own clarity. “Well, the Old Norse seemed to think you were pretty bad news. As you probably noticed from _stalking_ me all this time, I don’t write fanfiction without doing my research. I’ve read the Norse Eddas. In those stories, you’re—”

“In _those_ stories. In Yoruba myth, I am a respected guardian and guide.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Look it up on your all-powerful interwebs if you don’t believe me. Santeria practitioners sacrifice to Eshu—to _me—_ before any other god; they respect my power and the value of my role as intermediary between worlds. According to certain Ancient Mediterranean strains of myth, I created the human race and gave you hapless idiots knowledge of language and fire. Hell, in half the Native American lore you’ll find, I not only pushed humans through their own evolution, but created all the land you live on, the game you hunt, and the crops you eat… _and_ gave you fire, crafts, and language. You’re welcome.”

“Wait, so… did you actually?” I say, my eyes widening a little in tentative disbelief.

“Actually what?”

“Create humanity,” I say, “Or—you know—bring us fire and arts and stuff?”

“I don’t know,” he says with an impatient wave of his hand. “I’ve been around for tens of thousands of years; you really expect me to remember _everything_ little adventure I indulge in? The point is that no story is all black and white. For every myth that has me bring about the end of humanity, there’s one saying I _created_ it. For every story that paints me in dark colors, there is one where I am a source of illumination.”

“Yes—well, the Norse Eddas are the ones I’ve actually _read_ ,” I say, still not quite ready to accept his argument, “And those pretty much say _you are_ the apocalypse. So, excuse me if I’m a little skeptical when you tell me you’re here to _stop_ the destruction of humanity.”

“Alright,” The god drags a hand across is face in obvious exasperation. “May I just point out that the Eddas were written by a Christian?”

“So?”

“So, I’m sure _none_ of the morals and archetypes he believed in had _any_ bearing on his presentation of his subject material.”

“Okay—b-but still—”

“And that’s to say nothing of the people whose mythologies he was misinterpreting. The Old Norse may have been tough seafarers, but they still suffered from the same fearful idiocy that plagued all Europeans during the Dark Ages—and still plagues much of your species today. I’m sure you noticed during your research that their entire mythological canon consists of their gods panicking over the impending Ragnarok; that’s because they themselves were constantly in an agony of worry about annihilation by outside forces from beyond their walls and shores and this fear was reflected in their mythology. _Of course_ their smooth-talking, trouble-making character of dubious motives and questionable parentage was painted in a cautionary light. Like most medieval Europeans and most humans in general, the Norse feared _everything,_ outsiders most of all. Are _you_ a fear-addled medieval peasant?”

“Um… no?”

“Then I am not Loki. Not that version, anyway.”

“What do you mean _that version?_ ” I ask, confused.

“Just as every culture has a vastly different interpretation of me, so too does every community, every generation, every individual storyteller. Perceptions of me change and adapt to time, place, and culture. There have been many Lokis—from those earliest lost songs, to Sturlson, to your Stan Lee—as there have been many Sun Wukongs, many Coyotes, many Eshus… Every culture, every _person_ , has their own take on my character and how to deal with me. To some peoples I was a wise guide and teacher to be heeded and respected. Only some choose to fixate on my vengeful discontent and jealousy.”

“So… what _are_ you?” I ask.

“Me.” He shrugs. “Just me. What else?”

“No—I mean—what I meant was… which interpretation is… you know… correct? Or—most accurate?”

The god narrows his eyes at me and hisses out a long sigh. “Did you hear none of what I just said? I am _all_ of them, you silly little human. I know this is difficult for your Western Christian brain to wrap around, but not everything has a fixed and canonized form. And not everything in this world can be neatly divided into darks and lights.”

“No. I just mean… very generally… Are you an _Eshu_ type trickster, or… are you more of a Loki?” I ask cautiously, unsure of which I even wanted him to answer.

“I am both and I am neither.”

“So… you _are_ the herald of the apocalypse?” That’s what I’m really trying to get at.

“Everyone has their bad days,” he says defensively. “People interpret what I do the way they want. But I’ve learned not to worry about the judgments of humans… or my fellow immortals. After all, what kind of trickster would I be if I allowed others’ perceptions to dictate my nature and actions?”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “But… what should I call you?”

“I told you, people have called me all sorts of things.”

“Yeah, but… what’s your real name?”

“My _real_ name?” Not-Muffin smiles in amusement. “My real name _is_ Loki. It also happens to be Anansi and Ajapa, Eris and Eleggua, Susanowo and Sun Wukong, Uzume and Ikto, Coyotl and Kokopelli, Kutkh and Kupua, Kwaku and Krishna. My real name is Mara, Yehl, Nanabozho, Veeho, Hermes. My real name is Prometheus.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Different question: all these names people have called you… is one of them Lucifer?”

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he just starts chuckling.

“That’s not an answer,” I say more forcefully. “I’m serious. Is one of your names Lucifer?”

The laughter fades from his face and his expression twitches in a short flicker of something dark…and _furious_. “What do _you_ think?” He snaps.

And I don’t know… I don’t know why he’s angry… because people _have_ called him that or because I suggested it…

“Sorry,” I say. I’m not exactly sure why I said it, but suddenly all I want to do is change the subject. “So… when the other gods talk to you, what do they call you?”

“Whatever they like. ‘Asshole’ was always a favorite… and ‘whore,’ and ‘scumbag.’”

“Yeah, but you must have had an actual _name_ they called you.”

The god shakes his head. “Deities mainly refer to each other by their titles; that’s just simpler when you’re working across all different languages, cultures, and times. So, they called me ‘Mischief,’ or ‘Trickster’ usually… ‘Lord of the Crossroads’ on the rare occasions they wanted to be respectful, ‘Chaos Bringer’ when they were fearmongering, ‘Liesmith,’ when they wanted to insult me directly… ‘Silvertongue’ when they’re being backhanded about it. But I can’t tell you what to call me. You’ll have to decide what I am to _you_.”

“Well… you’ve been ‘Muffin’ for the past month. I’m assuming you don’t want me to keep calling you that.”

“You may if you want to.” He pauses. “I would rather you didn’t. It’s… _disturbingly wholesome_. I mean, Gabby’s a nice girl, but _really_? A harmless, healthy, heavy, whole grain pastry? I’d take Cupcake, Brownie… something rich, and sweet, and a little bad for you. But _Muffin_? Really?”

“You’re really upset about that, huh?”

“Well, it’s a terrible name!”

“I like muffins,” I shrugged.

“You _would_. But honestly, Chavez, do you look at me in any form and think of the most boring, innocuous pastry in existence?”

“No,” I laugh. “If that makes you feel any better. Muffin was Gabby’s idea. _I_ wanted to call you Trouble.”

“Oh? Is _that_ what I am to you?” he says, feigning hurt.

“So far, yeah. You’ve been nothing but trouble.”

He nods. “Weak play on words, Magpie… but I’ll take it.”

Just then I hear the sound of the front door opening and we both turn at the sound.

“Shit, they’re home,” I say. “You should probably…” but before I can finish the sentence, the God of Mischief has shrunk back down into a cat and slid from the bed onto the floor.

“Whoa…” I recoil slightly. Even though I knew he could do it this time around, it’s still kind of unnerving to watch a man just curl up into a creature less than a quarter his size. Muffin—or Trouble, I guess now—snakes his tail around one of my legs, looks up at me and then speaks in the same smooth voice he used as a man.

“It would be appreciated if you didn’t tell anyone about this exchange.”

“Well, given that don’t want to be institutionalized,” I frown down at him, “I don’t really have a choice. So… are you just going to like… stay in my room?”

“Until the time for action comes, yes.”

“Action?”

“Yes. Until then, just go about your life as normal.”

“But I—”

“ _As normal,_ ” he insists just before the door opens to reveal my little sister, still in her gymnastics leotard.

“Oh.” She looks around the room. “I thought I heard voices. Are you talking to the cat again?”

“I—no. Absolutely not,” I say and Gabby giggles.

“You’re so weird.”

“Yeah…”

“Jocelyn, are you okay?” she asks. I guess I must still look pretty shaken.

“Um… I… I…”

“Did something happen?”

“Well—um…” I just stand there for a moment like an idiot.

“Yeah?” Gabby prompts.

“Well, I-I sort of got… asked to the midwinter dance,” I say because at least it’s an explanation. I’ll just say some girl asked me out and I had to say no because obviously I don’t swing that—

“Seriously?!” Gabby all but squeals. “You have a date for the dance?!”

“I—yeah. Or—no—I-I mean, I don’t—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Gabby laughs. “Let me get this straight now… You… _you_ have a date for the dance?”

“Okay, shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. She wouldn’t be my sister if she didn’t make fun of me just a little.

“How did a boy even _find_ you?” She giggles. “You’re always hiding from them.”

“Gabby—”

“Who is it, anyway?” She asks.

“It’s… h-his name is… Lucas.” Oh God, why am I lying? This is only going to end badly.

“Is that what you’re calling your laptop now? Are you going to the dance with your laptop?”

“No,” I say, feeling heat steadily rising in my cheeks. “H-haven’t I told you about Lucas?”

Gabby shakes her head. Of course, I haven’t told her or any of my family about Lucy, even as those weird dreams drove me up the wall. I’ve talked about Lucy to Muffin—Trouble, the God of Mischief—and to my friends online, but not to my family. I guess I just don’t really talk much to them about my social life… or… anything really.

“Lucas is… he’s a new student,” I say. “He’s… um…”

“Is he cute?” Gabby asks, making eyebrows at me.

“I… well—yes, I—”

“Is he tall?”

“He’s… not really. I mean, he’s taller than me.”

“What color are his eyes?”

“They’re—dark. But that’s not really the—”

“ _Ooh_! Can I go dress-shopping with you?”

“Um… sure,” I have to say because she just looks so excited.

“ _Yay!_ ” She jumps up and punches the air. “Jocelyn’s actually going to leave the house and go shopping! Yay! Hey, Mom! Hey, Mom!” She runs off delightedly, her ponytail bouncing behind her as she sing-songs down the hall, “Jocelyn’s got a boyfriend! Jocelyn’s got a boyfriend!”

“Why did you lie?” a soft voice says and I look down to find the cat of mischief looking up at me.

“I-I didn’t… I had to tell her something and I just can’t… I can’t talk about—”

“Your real life?” He says. “I suppose you always _have_ made up stories to make her happy.”

“Not so much anymore.” It’s been a while since Gabby has needed my goofy made-up fantasies to distract her from reality… She’s better at fitting into reality than I ever was.

“She still likes it when you talk to her, you know.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “She has plenty of friends who are a lot more fun than her reclusive loser of a big sister.”

“She admires you.”

“No one admires me,” I say quietly. Least of all my effervescent, perfect, social butterfly of a twelve-year-old sister.

“You should go dress-shopping with her at least,” he says at length. “Spend a little time with her… while you still have the time.”

“The time?” _Before I leave for college or before the world ends?_ I want to ask, but the black cat has already slid past my legs and out of my room.

 

Going on as though everything is normal turns out to be easier than I was expecting. More than anything I just feel… _dazed_. Or maybe ‘shell-shocked’ is a better word. Before I had been so terrified about everything. But now that my grades, and the whole Lucy business, my hopeless college search have been put in perspective—specifically against the end of humanity as I know it—I feel strangely calmed. It’s like I was all worried about a piece of hail falling on my head and all of a sudden a fucking meteor blows a Gulf-of-Mexico-sized hole in the Earth and obliterates the dinosaurs, leaving no worry… just… nothing.

Thank God my mom and sister drag me out dress shopping within fifteen minutes of hearing about the dance. The artificial lighting, and music, and bustle of customers I usually hate so much is precisely what I need right now. Because I think if I even started to reflect on what had happened alone in the quiet of my room, my head would just explode. No, this is better, surrounded by the sensory overload of brightly colored fabrics and a jumble of voices.

Gabby and Mom don’t seem to notice my bizarre state as I idly run my hand over the silky fabric of a pretty black and red dress and wonder what the end of the world might be like. Maybe because they’re a little too excited about choosing a dress; or maybe just because I always act a dazed and weird when made to leave the house. I must slide in and out of dozen dresses with my thoughts dangling somewhere between, _oh well, that just makes my thighs look huge and pale,_ and _hey, my cat is a god and the world might end… weird._

As I step out of the changing room for the hundredth time and Gabby exclaims “Oh my God, that one is perfect!’ and Mom asks if I like it, and I nod and smile, I start to realize that the only thing I _can_ do is keep going as though everything is normal. If the end of the world is coming, I might never have to worry about Lucy and the dance… I won’t have to worry about college… But I suppose it’s fun pretending that there is a dance I’m going to go to with this made-up, dreamy, dilemma-free Lucas.

I drift through the rest of the day in that same numb stupor—through a few more errands with Mom and Gabby, through dinner, and washing the dishes, until it finds me on my back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, utterly still. I don’t turn my head to look when a familiar white-pawed shadow slides languidly into my periphery. I’m not sure if I could move if I wanted to. My body seems to have filled up with leaden lethargy, sitting inside my limbs, pinning me to the bed in my trance.

“And are we doing alright, Chavez?” The god’s smooth voice rolls out of the darkness.

All I can manage in response is a noncommittal grunt, my lips unmoving, my eyes still fixed on the soothing blankness of the ceiling.

“Did you find a dress?” He asks, padding soundlessly out of the darkness into the fading daylight filtering in through the blinds.

“Uh-huh,” I breathe, still not moving.

“Good.” He slinks closer to plant a pair of white paws on the pillow beside my head. “Planning on moving any time soon?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You promised your followers a new chapter by tomorrow. Not going to finish writing that?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Just going to lie there and pretend to be dead?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hmm.” He sits back on his haunches and rests there for a long moment, green eyes gleaming as he considers me.

Then, in an instant, he springs. I’ve barely even registered the movement before I feel the weight of his body on my stomach and the shock of claws sticking through my clothes to dig into my skin.

“ _Ahh_!” I jerk upward in a combination of pain and surprise, my stupor utterly shattered. In the instant it takes me to lurch upright, the damn cat has already sprung off of me and bounded to the other end of the room.

“What the _hell,_ Trouble?” I demand, putting a hand to my smarting stomach, my heart still pounding madly from the shock. “What was _that_ for?”

“When I told you to continue your life as normal, I meant online as well as off it. You will want to keep your blog and stories updated like nothing has changed.”

“ _Why?_ ” I ask, still massaging my middle. “I thought you said the fucking apocalypse was coming.”

“That’s precisely why you’ll want to keep those going.”

“What?” How did _that_ make any sense?

“Now, get out of bed and write,” he snaps.

“You expect me to write right now?” I say incredulously.

“ _Yessss._ ” He bares his needle teeth in a hiss. “Or put fancy filters on a set of screencaps, or reblog some kittens, do _something_.”

“Okay, this may shock you,” I say, “but I’m not really feeling like working on anything right now, you know, knowing the world’s probably going to end soon and all.”

“ _Probably,_ ” the god spits back at me and in a rolling billow of inky blackness and flashing silver, he has unfurled into his human form. “But nobody ever overturned a _probably_ by lying back doing nothing, did they? Listen, I appreciate idleness as much as the next demon, but if there is one thing I cannot abide it is _complacency_.” He snarls the word through his teeth as though it tastes bad in his mouth. “And Primordials know I’ve seen you spend more than enough time moping around over nothing. I’m not asking that you build a space ship or topple a government. But you _will_ sit in that chair, and do the only thing you ever seem to be able to do; write.”

“But—”

“I did not tell you about Fate’s plans, so you could fall into a stupor. I told you so you could _do_ something.”

“But how is writing stupid fanfiction supposed to help?” I demand.

“Fate makes pawns of the passive more easily than the willful. You don’t want Fate to take over the world; it starts by actively working at something… something that’s _yours._ ”

“I’m just… I’m not sure I can write right now.”

“Of course you can,” the god says. “You have expectations to destroy, cliff-hangers to rig, hearts to rend. You have to.”

“If you say so,” I say.

“ _No,_ ” he says in frustration. “ _Not_ because I say so. Because _you want to_.”

“Um… okay,” I say, not sure why that matters.

“You have readers waiting for what happens next,” he says. “You want to.”

So, I guess he’s figured out at least that much about me from reading over my shoulder and watching my behavior; I can rarely resist anticipation. The more anxious my readers are to see a chapter, the more anxious I am to get it written and out to them… usually. The prospect of a magical apocalypse might have dulled that a bit. All the same, I guess it’s worth a try.

“Fine,” I sigh, swinging my legs off the bed. “I’ll work on an outline, okay.”

And I settle down at my desk with my notebook, all the while painfully aware of the volatile god pacing back and forth behind me. His movement is quieter than a whisper of mist, but I can feel his shadow on me, making it hellishly difficult to concentrate. Eventually, I do manage to knock out something, even if it’s just a couple key words scribbled uneasily after one another.

“Okay…” I mutter when I think I may have come up with a few sentences I can put into the word processor to keep my crazy visitor happy. “Okay, okay…” I tap my computer awake and put my fingers on the keyboard. “Chapter Five, let’s go…” I’ve just lifted my fingers to type out the first word when my screen and the lights go out all at once. A black-sleeved arm descends with the sudden darkness, wrapping around my shoulders to pull me out of my chair. A sharp gasp of surprise jerks in my chest, but a cool strong hand closes over my mouth before I can cry out.

“ _Shhh_.” The god’s breath brushes my cheek—tense and urgent—and before I can think or make to pry the hand from my mouth he slings me to the floor as though I weigh nothing at all.

“Stay down,” he breathes, powerful hands smoothly lowering me the last few inches onto the carpet. “And don’t make a sound.” He releases my mouth then but lets a finger linger on my lips for emphasis.

 _What?_ I want to ask as I feel my heart thud against my ribcage in apprehension. _What is it?_ But the finger is still held rigidly against my lips and I keep quiet.

“ _Something is coming_.”

 


	10. Primordial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so this is probably as good a time as any to note that what you're reading here is the extended cut of a story I've since made attempts to edit down. So yeah, some scenes, like the Primordial scene in this chapter, aren't in the 'final cut' and don't tie in too tightly with the rest of the plot, but I think they're fun, so I've left them in.
> 
> Updates every Saturday.
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _soon the ancient meme god nyancat will return and slay your false meme idols. the hour of the lolcat is upon us. Repent. u can haz mercy_ ”

—reactionaryurl.tumblr.com

 

“ _Something is coming_.” The words are mouthed so faintly I shouldn’t be able to make them out, but he casts his voice into my ears somehow so that the whisper is ominously clear.

I can just make out his human form crouched above me in the darkness, every muscle held stock still with feline wariness. The only movement is in his eyes as they flick to the window and then narrow, gleaming sharply in the sliver of twilight filtering in between the blinds. I hold my breath, straining my own eyes and ears for a hint of anything out of the ordinary, but all I hear is a rustle of wind and the sound of a car racing by a block or so away. Whatever he’s sensing, I don’t think it’s something my human eyes and ears can perceive.

Shifting cautiously onto his knees, the god presses a hand to my shoulder as if to reiterate, ‘ _stay_ ’ and then creeps forward. It’s remarkable how changing from a cat to a man has barely altered the way he moves. Not one footfall makes any sound as he stalks his way across the carpet to the window. Had it been a little darker, I would have mistaken him for a passing shadow. Reaching the window, the spectral god places his fingertips on the wall and, pressing himself gently into them, he raises himself up onto his knees just high enough to peer out from the between the blinds. His black eyes flick anxiously back and forth a few times, scanning for something, though judging by the expression on his face, he hasn’t seen anything yet.

I swallow and realize that I haven’t let out my breath for quite some time. _What the hell is going on?_ I know he told me not to move, but I can’t help it… I push myself up—slowly, carefully, making sure I don’t make a sound—and move forward. The carpet is thick enough that I can crawl over without making much noise and in a moment, I’ve joined the God of Mischief at the window. He doesn’t stop me as I lift myself up to look out of the window with him. Through the half-cocked blinds, the stretch of road in front of the house is fully visible, but it seems to be empty…

Then I see it. A dark figure stands at the street corner, just barely illuminated by the white glow of a streetlight. The god beside me goes rigid, every muscle snapping to attention, though I can’t understand why; it’s just a random passerby… isn’t it? The person—I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman—is hunched away from us, curled deep into what appears to by a ratty old coat, it’s face obscured by a tattered gray hood drawn up over its head. Probably homeless. But homeless people aren’t terribly uncommon in this neighborhood; it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Confused, I let my eyes sweep back down the street in search of something else that might have the God of Mischief so on edge, but it is empty. A sharp intake of breath beside me draws my attention back to Trouble and then to the huddled figure. It has gotten closer… at least I think it has, though I’m not sure how. I didn’t see any movement in my periphery. The person is still as still as stone under the streetlights.

“Chavez…” Trouble’s voice is cold with something like fear. “Move away from the window… slowly.”

But just then, the figure _moves_ , its head snapping around to face us. And its _face_ … its face is not human, but a gaunt gray-white mask like withered tree bark stretched over its skull, with two cavernous holes where its eyes should be. I start back in breathless horror and suddenly the terrible face is directly before me, looming on the other side of the glass, all but pressed up against it. For a petrifying heartbeat, those two sockets yawn before me, bottomless, and inescapable, and utterly dark.

My heart leaps into my throat, but again, Trouble’s hand is over my mouth before the scream can find its way out. In the blink of an eye, he snatches me from in front of the window and swings us both around against the wall. When we come to a stop, pressed into the drywall, there is a knife in his hand, gleaming ethereal silver in the dim light. Whether he whipped it out of some hiding place in his coat or just magically produced it, I have no idea, but he holds it at the ready with his right hand while his left remains clamped firmly over my mouth.

Everything is still for a moment… and then another. Whatever that thing—that terrifying thing—was outside the window, it hasn’t made any sound or any move to get in… is it even still there? The blinds hang as they were, undisturbed, with the streetlight slicing into the room between them. There’s no way to be sure it isn’t still waiting there without stepping in front of the window, which the God of Mischief—still coiled for attack with me pinned out of sight—doesn’t seem ready to do.

I let out a tremulous breath through my nostrils, only to suck back in again as Trouble presses us further back against the wall and adjusts his grip on the knife. He’s incredibly powerful I realize, as I stand there, pinned to the wall by his grip; I can feel it in every drawn muscle and the waver of his dark aura. The hand over my mouth isn’t squeezing very hard, but I get the feeling that it wouldn’t take much effort for those wiry fingers to break my jaw. This is a being that could crush me without a second thought. Yet that eyeless thing outside the window seems to have him completely terrified.

It’s the first time the enormity of the situation hits me—actually hits me. These are literally gods at war and I’m just—I’m just—I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to see those reeling empty sockets, or to feel the almost-painful pressure of Trouble’s fingers digging into my jaw. This is insane. I’m just an ant, caught between crashing boulders. I’m much too small, much too small, for all of this. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

I open my eyes just in time to feel Trouble throw me to the floor and dart in front of the window, severing the strings holding up the blinds in a single slash of his knife. The blinds smack to the floor and my heart skips a beat—but nothing is there. Just the empty street. Trouble lets his knife hand fall to his side.

“She’s gone,” he breathes, his shoulders slumping in relief.

“What?” I scramble clumsily up onto my elbows, words tumbling from my mouth in a haphazard stream. “What-what are you talking about? What was that?” I push myself back from the window until I feel my back hit the desk. “How—what—how do you know it’s gone?”

“Easy, Chavez,” Trouble says, waving his free hand over his shoulder in an odd gesture. “The danger is passed.”

“How do you know that?” My heart feels like it’s beating a million times per second and I think I might be close to tears. “How do you know? How do you know?”

“I have keen senses.” He makes the gesture again, this time more forcefully, and then glares accusingly at his hand. “She’s miles away now.”

“Okay…” I nod, trying to will my heart to stop hammering. “Okay…” But I can’t stop shaking.

Trouble makes the gesture a third time, waits a moment, rolls his eyes, and then crosses to flip on the light switch with and irritated huff. That’s when I realize he must have been trying to bring the lights back on the whole time he was waving his hand around like that. So apparently he can darken a room in the blink of an eye, but the reverse is harder for him. Weird.

“You’re afraid,” he says, crossing back to stand over me. “Now that you’ve had a bare glimpse of god-like power, you figure a little human like you will be crushed like a bug in this conflict.”

I don’t answer. He’s right of course, but I’m not sure I want to admit that. So instead I swallow and ask, “Wh-who was the weeping angel?”

“Our lovely visitor?” Trouble says. “Oh, you know Her. You’re written about Her. That was one of the Three.”  

“One of the what?”

“The Three… that’s what most deities call them. In Western tradition they have been called the _Moirai_ , or the _Parcae_ , or—as your fandom most likely knows them— the _Norns_.”

“You mean like… the three sisters of fate?” I say. “But I thought the Fate we were dealing with was a guy… god… person… s-singular.”

“He is. The Three are connected to him, but they are of a different, more ancient class gods than the rest of us… the _Primordials_ , we sometimes call them.”

“What…?” My brain is still scrambling to make sense of everything. “You… what do you mean more ancient? I… I thought you said all of the gods were born the same time as humanity.”

“There are two classes of deity,” Trouble says. “There are the gods and demons I have described to you, the deities like myself and Fate. We are those that came into existence—or at least gained a human-like awareness of our own existence—with the emergence of modern humans. For the purposes of distinction, we call ourselves the _Sentients_.

“Then, there are the Primordials like the Three. They have a very different kind of existence. To me and my divine and demonic kin, human consciousness is everything; to the Three, it is no more or less important than the tides, migrating birds, the shifting sand dunes, or the grinding of tectonic plates. They are gods of all things, not just of humanity. The Sentient god, Fate, is nothing more than the embodiment of the limited human rationalization of the eternal and unknowable power of the Three. Just as the Sentient gods of Birth, Death, and Change are merely shadows of their Primordial counterparts created by human perception.”

I’m only hearing about half of what he is saying. My mind is still drowning somewhere in those hollow darkness of those eye sockets.

“The Three rarely speak to other gods,” Trouble continues, “and when they do, they are difficult to understand, as are most Primordials. Fate is the only god able to communicate with them consistently. It is through the eyes of the Three that he gets the knowledge upon which he writes all human destiny.”

“What? So, you mean, his foresight is all… _second-hand_?” I say dazedly. In that case, I’m surprised he doesn’t screw up more.

“Not all of it. Fate—like many gods—is an adept reader of human souls and can often determine a person’s path, based on what he perceives inside them. However, it is his connection to the Three that sets him apart from other forecasters of the future. From them, he knows the future movement of all the world’s _natural_ forces.”

“Okay, but—is she—the-the Primodrial… Norn… _thing_ we just saw… isn’t she under Fate’s control?”

“Not sure,” Trouble says nonchalantly. “As far as I can tell, Fate’s mind control only extends to the Sentients. Primordials like the Three are something else entirely; I would be very surprised if he had devised a way to control them. Usually the tip-off that a conscious god is under Fate’s thralls is a stupid glazed look in the eyes, but given the Three’s unique um… _condition_ ,” He gestures to his own eyes with a little chuckle, “there’s no way to tell with them.”

“Oh…” I let out my breath. My heart still hasn’t calmed down. I feel like I’m going to faint, and cry, and throw up all at once. “Okay…”

“Are you alright?” Trouble asks uncertainly.

“I… no.” I say honestly. “No, not really.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It-it’s just…” I nearly choke on my fluttering breath and have to bite down hard on my lower lip for a moment. “It’s…” Something had hit me the moment those empty eyes turned on me. “It’s real.” Since Trouble has revealed himself to me, everything has felt like a bizarre dream, but that face, the urgency, the fear… had been real. “It’s all real.”

“Well, yes,” Trouble says impatiently. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole day.”

“I-I…” I put my hand over my mouth and realize that my fingers are shaking. “I can’t believe it…” My other hand comes up to grasp at my hair and, against all logic, I feel a smile tugging at the edges of my mouth. “It’s real.”

My whole life, I’ve plunged myself into stories of gods and monsters, wrapping myself up in their sweeping, fantastical troubles to forget about my mundane ones. But suddenly it isn’t a story anymore. It’s here. On my street, in my room… all the magic, and beauty, and danger, that has made me laugh, and made me cry, and given me another life when mine was too boring or depressing or stressful… It’s real. My breath hitches and suddenly I feel a swollen lump of emotion mounting in my throat. I try to gulp it back, fail, and pitch forward into a giggling sob. Before I know it, I’m a bawling, sniveling mess, rocking back and forth with my face buried in my knees and my hands clutching at my hair.

“Oh dear,” Trouble sighs, leaning casually against the window frame to watch my meltdown. “You make a _wonderful_ case for humanity, don’t you?” He lets out a chuckle that turns into full on laugh as I try to suck back the torrent of sobs racking my body.

“ _Why are you laughing_?” I glare murder up at him from under my sodden eyelashes, my voice caught a shrill somewhere between a sob and a whisper. “You fucking _weirdo_!”

“See, this is why I love humans,” Trouble grins in obvious delight and leans down to put a hand on my head. “So excitable.”

“You have issues,” I sniff.

“So I’m told.”

“Just get away from me,” I scowl, pushing his hand away. “This isn’t—I’m not doing this okay? I don’t care about your stupid god problems or whatever. I don’t want any of this. I won’t—I can’t do it.” I curl up against the side of my desk, wrapping my arms protectively around my knees. “I can’t. I can’t—”

“But you want to.”

“ _What_?” I spit.

“This is what you’ve always wanted; gods, and monsters, and high-stakes adventures.” And he’s right. I can’t deny how much I wanted this, how I wished for this—sometimes so much it drove a knife into me and brought me to tears—when I was a child. And now it’s here… and it’s more terrifying than anything in the familiar reality I’ve always tried to escape. “You’ve always loved this kind of story,” Trouble says softly.

“In _fiction_ ,” I hiss. “Not in real life. Not-not like this.”

“Like this?” Trouble laughs, gesturing around him. “By which you mean, with real consequences… like everything in real life?”

“I… No, I don’t—I just don’t…” I clutch at my hair again, struggling for words. “Someone like me… doesn’t belong in a story like this,” I say finally. “You’re all fast, and powerful, and millions of years old, and I’m just—”

“There is always someone more powerful than you, Jocelyn,” Trouble says, playfully flipping his knife into the air and catching it by the blade. “The trick is to know _your_ strengths,” He taps me lightly on the tip of the nose the end of the knife-handle, “and utilize them.”

“But I don’t _have_ any strengths!” Not any that would be even a little bit useful against gods, anyway.

“Sure, you do,” he says.

“Like what?”

“That will become clear. I promise, when the time is right, it will all make sense.”

“R-really?”

“No.” He bursts out laughing. “ _No_ , you little idiot. You’re a human being. Nothing is ever going to make sense. Now, you can spend the rest of your short life on the floor crying about it, or you can fuck it all and do what you want. You know, draw something, write more of your fanfiction, go to your dumb dance with whoever you want. But until you decide to do something with yourself, I have better things to do.”

With that, he vanishes in a sweep of his coat and whirl of smoke, leaving me alone in the room.

 

 

……………………………

 

_Tap, tap… tap, tap…_

I roll over onto my back and groan.

_Tap, tap… tap, tap… tap, tap…_

Grimacing, I open my eyes to let the morning light crawl into them. Perched outside the window beside my bed, is a crow, his black feathers catching the first rays of sunshine as they peek over the trees across the street.

Leaning in, he raps his beak against the window again: _tap, tap…_

This is how I have been woken up nearly every morning since coming back to my dad’s house: _tap, tap…_

I prefer the God of Mischief as a cat. But of course, his cat form is off limits here thanks to my dad’s allergies.

_Tap, tap…_

“Okay, _okay,_ I’m up,” I slur gloomily and pull myself up onto my knees to open the window. A blast of winter air prickles against my skin as it rushes past me into the room; not my favorite way to wake up. Shivering faintly, I lift up the screen and grudgingly offer Trouble my arm. The dark feathered god hops onto my wrist and I draw him into the room with me before hurriedly shutting the window against the cold.

“Alright, report,” I shiver. “And it better be something important because it’s like…” I pause to squint at the clock, “ _an hour_ before I’m supposed to wake up.”

Trouble has been around for almost two weeks now. At first, it was weird sharing my room and my life with a god—it still _is_ weird—but it’s started to feel more normal as everything he does has become part of my daily routine, including these reports. During the night while I sleep and the day while I’m at school, Trouble will fly around, scouting the area and doing… whatever a god of mischief does, always returning to my window early in the morning, and then again after school to give me a status report.

“ _Well_?” I look back at the god, waiting for him to hop off my arm and transform into a man as he usually does.

He just shifts his claws on my wrist and gives a hoarse squawk in response. For a moment the thought crosses my mind that this isn’t Trouble at all and I’ve just let a wild bird into my room by mistake, but I quickly dismiss it. Normal crows don’t go knocking on windows, expecting to be invited in. And I can see the distinctive deep black ripple of Trouble’s magic—or aura, or whatever I’m supposed to call it—in the bird’s feathers. They’re a little more ruffled than usual, and a couple are sticking out at odd angles, but this is definitely him. He squawks again, more insistently.

“Not so loud.” I hiss under my breath. “Dad and Gabby are still sleeping. What’s wrong with you?”

Another squawk—this one a bit softer but no less irritated—and he glares up at me.

“What?” I shake him off my wrist onto his perch on my bedpost. “Aren’t you going to transform? Or did you wake me up just to crow at me?”

“I…” the god’s voice comes out scratchy at first, still carrying the shrill gravel of the crow’s squawk, before he manages to adjust it to a semblance of his human whisper. “I… can’t… transform.” Each word seems forced from his bird’s throat with grating effort. “I’m… _healing_.”

That’s when I notice the thin red trickle, running from the tip of one of his claws down the bedpost. Blood. I look down at my forearm and realize that there is reddish-black stuff sticking there as well. I must not have noticed it past the bite of the winter air.

“Oh… Oh fuck, you’re bleeding!” I say stupidly.

Bird!Trouble cocks his head at me as if to say ‘no shit.’

“What happened?” I ask anxiously and then realize that demanding an explanation when human speech is clearly taxing for him might not be a good idea. “I—I mean… you’re going to be okay, right?”

The crow nods and croaks, “Give it… a moment.”

“I-is there anything I can do to help?” I ask. “Do you need like, a bandage or—”

“ _Give it a moment_ ,” he repeats.

“O-okay.” I sit back on my knees and watch anxiously. Wherever the blood is coming from, it’s concealed under a coat of black feathers so I can’t really _see_ the healing process, but after a few moments have passed, he seems to have steadied himself.

His transformation into a man is a little shakier, a little clumsier than usual. Instead of flowing from one form into the other, I see him painstakingly bend and strain, and unhinge himself to make it happen. For a moment, I see the shapes of great black wings extending, angel-like, from his back before they fold down to become his coat. When he _does_ fall into his finished human form, he’s not nearly as tall and robust as usual; he’s hardly bigger than I am. I don’t think his legs are holding him up very well, but he manages to fold to his knees gracefully enough that it looks deliberate. Traces of flight feathers, not properly folded in during the transformation, are still shifting around to integrate themselves into the blackness of his coat as he lifts his head to look up at me.

“I had an unintentional brush with two of Fate’s pawns.”

“You mean… other gods?”

“Demons,” he says, massaging his side gingerly. “Fate most likely sent them to do away with the two of us—or maybe just to scare me off so you can be taken care of quietly. Don’t worry,” he adds at the look of alarm on my face. “I’m not that easily intimidated. And I managed to lose them, for now. They don’t know our exact location yet—I think it helps that you switch houses every week—but they are getting closer. They will be back.”

“So what do we do?” I ask anxiously.

“Relax,” he says, grasping my bedpost and using it to pull himself to his feet. “Everything will figure itself out.”

“What do you _mean_ everything will figure itself out?” I demand. That seems like a rather cavalier approach to this situation. “There are gods—or demons or whatever—trying to kill us and—and you’re _still bleeding_!” I exclaim as I notice the red spots blooming on the carpet.

“Oh…” he looks down at the blood dripping from under his sleeve down the back of his hand. “So I am… Well, your room could use a little more color.”

“I’m going to get you a bandage or something,” I say, climbing out of bed to head to the bathroom.

“No, no.” He stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “I am more than capable of healing myself.”

“Apparently you’re not,” I say and make to push past him.

He lets me go, but says, “Bandages won’t help on this injury.”

“Okay…” I turn back as he sinks into my desk chair, still clutching his side. “Then what will?”

“Just stay,” he says quietly. “Stay and talk to me.”

The request surprises me so much that all I do is stand and stare for a moment.Then sharp black eyes meet mine, hardened in annoyance as though to make up for the quiet flicker of vulnerability.

“I need a distraction.”

“A distraction?” I say. “Don’t you need to, like, concentrate to heal yourself?” I’m still confused as hell about how his shape-changing, reality-bending magic powers work, but as far as I’ve observed, using them seems to require a significant amount of focus.

“You’d think. Come, sit,” he says, gesturing to the bed.

It isn’t the first time he’s offered me a seat in my own room, but this time I go to sit opposite him without arguing.

“Um… what do you want to talk about?”

“Anything.” He says through gritted teeth. “Just don’t bore me.”

“Okay… so… what—”

“You written anything lately?”

“I… not lately.”

“Why not?”

“Well, as shocking as this might sound, it’s kind of hard to get excited about my weird sci-fi fantasy stuff when this is my real life.”

“So…” Trouble says. “Why don’t you write about this?”

“What… you mean about you? About my real life?”

“Why not? Your followers seem to like you enough that I’m sure they’d read anything you posted.”

“Okay, but… assuming, I’d be posting it under fiction since, you know, I don’t want anyone to call mental health services, this is _not_ actually a very good story. First off, you don’t make enough sense for me to write about you competently. Second, I make the worst protagonist in the world.”

“What makes you say that?”

“What makes me say that? Uh, where do I even start? Okay… I don’t have any special skills, powers, or magical objects that could be even a little bit useful in a god throw-down. I’m not inherently powerful or talented enough to be your magical Mary Sue savior. I’m not pretty enough to be love-interest material. I’m too weird to be your relatable, blank-slate, every-girl Bella Swan. I’m not sweet or patient enough to—”

“These are all requirements of protagonists of _stories_ ,” Trouble says. “You think that real life is bound to behave like one of your stories?”

“Only since it started acting like one,” I gesture hopelessly at him. “And since _you_ suggested I post it like a fanfiction.”

“Anyway, if you’re so certain of how to write these excellent protagonists, what makes you so sure you can’t be one?”

“Because there’s a difference between real life and stupid romance girl-power fantasies. And-and just because you can write something doesn’t mean you can do it. Do you see any detective agencies going to mystery authors for help?”

“No. But I’m not a detective agency.”

“Fine.” I sit back with a sigh. “Maybe I’m being stupid.”

“You are undoubtedly being stupid. Assuming the lamest of yourself is always stupid.”

“I’m not assuming the—I’m trying to be _honest_ with myself. Would you rather I just go into complete denial about how inept I am?”

“If it makes you stop spouting useless, inane garbage, and doing some real writing.”

“I’m trying to be realistic.”

“By thinking of yourself as a fictional character?”

“Okay, but come on,” I say. “Can you really blame me for thinking this is all playing like… like some crappy teen supernatural novel?”

“So, let me get this straight,” Trouble says. “Your logical conclusion after what you’ve witnessed is that our lives are the product of someone’s design… Some stuffy old author writing from a windowless room by himself.”

“No… no, this seems more like something written by a _she_ … like a lonely middle-aged housewife who’s sick of her vanilla marriage and always wanted a tall, dark, and psycho magical man to drop onto her doorstep… or, no… a boring housewife wouldn’t write a first-person monologue as full of swearing and nerd culture references as mine. At least I hope not.” I frown for a moment. “Maybe like a college student… yeah… like a twenty-three-year-old nerd, selling out into a trashy genre in the hopes of actually getting _readers_ for once in her—”

“Shh-shh,” Trouble puts a finger to my lips and I stop short. “Careful, dear.” He removes the finger, but not before I’ve noticed how much it’s shaking. “Only _I’m_ allowed to break the fourth wall.”

“ _Break the fourth wall_?” I laugh uneasily. “You mean—”

“Reality has many cracks in it. They’re few and most can never find them, but I like to slip from one side to the other.”

“One side to the other… so… wait. Which side are we on now?”

“Now, that’s a question a sane character—sorry, a sane _writer_ — like you doesn’t want to go asking.” He smiles around his clenched teeth as he clutches his arm. “Not quite yet.” He brushes his thumb over the magical scab he has woven over the cut on his arm and, wincing, peels back the sleeve of his coat to reveal that the wound goes much deeper further up his arm.

“ _Eee_ —” I clap a hand to my mouth before that can turn into a full-blown ‘ _Eeeew_!’ The flesh is rent apart like something had a three-inch claw deep in his bicep... or wing or whatever. And to make the spectacle even more grotesque, the flesh around the wound is all uneven and discolored, sporting tufts of fur in places, traces of scales and feathers in that part of his body, making it unsure of whether it was mammalian, avian, reptilian, or arachnid. It’s repulsive, seeing the pieces of all his different forms mangled and mashed together like that… yet I can’t look away. “A-are you _sure_ you’re going to be okay?”

“I said stay and talk,” Trouble says, not looking too pleased with the appearance of his arm either. “I never said you had to look.”

“I know, I just, it—it’s… so _weird_?” I marvel, leaning closer in spite of myself.

“Yes, I know.” Grimacing, Trouble plucks a stray scale out of the bloody mess and flicks it away before setting about threading strands of his magic into the injury. “This is quite a bit uglier than I thought, actually. It didn’t feel like much more than a scratch at first. Maybe that second round of the neighborhood was a bad idea. All that flying must have made it worse.”

“You _kept flying_?” I say, horrified. “With _that_ in your wing?”

“I’ll be fine,” he says impatiently, though his voice is strained with pain. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.” He grits his teeth and continues his work, though none of the threads of magic he lays seem to be doing much to bring his flesh and skin back together.

“I think it goes without saying that— _ahh_!” He flinches as one of his threads pulls on a loose feather. “It’s not terribly safe here anymore. I can protect one human; four is too many. Your family will need to leave town.”

“What? But—how? How do we get them to do that? Wh-what am I supposed to say to them?” _Hey guys, the shape-shifting demon that lives in my room said it’s the apocalypse, so I’m going to need you all to go to Mexico for the next month or maybe more. That’s_ sure to work out.

“Let me worry about that,” Trouble says. “You just carry on with your life as normally as you can. Update your fanfictions, finish your classes, go to your dance… Right now, that’s the only chance we have of maintaining our cover.”

“But… what are you going to do? How—”

“I’m the God of Mischief,” he says, forcing a smile. “I always find a way to get what I— _aghhh_!” He growls in a mixture of pain and frustration, doubling over his injured arm. “What is _wrong_ with me?” He slams a fist down on his knee.

“Whoa! A-are you okay?” I ask, my hands poised awkwardly before me, unsure of whether I should reach out and touch his shoulder or what I should do. “Do you need help?”

“ _No_ ,” he snarls so petulantly I just barely refrain from laughing.

“Okay…” I say patiently. “What’s—”

“Heal, _damn you_!” He hisses, grabbing the wrist of his injured arm and glaring at it. “ _Why_ won’t you _heal_?” He stands in a single furious motion and turns away from me, pressing his eyes into his hand.

“Trouble…” I say more softly. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he mumbles so quietly I can barely hear it. “I could always heal myself.” He takes his hand from his face and stares down at the ugly injury twisting its way up his arm. “Unless I was _hopelessly_ weakened for some reason, I could always heal myself…”

“Well… maybe you just need to give it a bit more time?” I offer.

“ _Quickly_ ,” he says in annoyance. “I could always heal myself _quickly_.”

“What changed?” I ask.

“I don’t know…” His hands clutch at the elegant black coat that serves as his fur and feathers in his other forms, pulling it tight around him like a blanket as he sinks back into the chair. “My powers haven’t been the same since…”

 _Since what?_ I want to ask, but something in the shadow across his face makes me decide against it. In a moment, he shakes his head and the shadow is gone, replaced by his usual easy smile—even if it is a little strained.

“There’s no better magic-user than I,” he says, promptly pulling his sleeve down over the unhealed injury. “You needn’t worry about my abilities.”

Looking at him, still on the small side and huddled in his black coat, I’m not sure I believe that.

“So… what happened, exactly?”

“I was doing my usual rounds, over this neighborhood and the ten-or-so miles around it. I saw them before they saw me, but… unfortunately they _did_ see me and, well…” He gestures at his injured arm.

“So, the gods—or the demons—that are onto us… they’re stronger than you are?”

“Most deities are stronger than I am,” Trouble straightens up, squaring his shoulders and giving me his dark grin. “But I’m not feared for my strength.”

“What _are_ you feared for?”

He gives me a piercing, unreadable look, straightening out his coat. “Just write your stories.”

 


	11. A Good Fit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a way-too-long chapter held together with hope and a spider’s thread. The thing’s probably full of redundancies and irritating little continuity errors (I promise, I’ll proofread as soon as I get the chance). I hope you guys enjoy incessant Jocelyn-Trouble banter… because that’s basically all there is to this chapter. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Hail Satan or what have you :)
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _my body may be a temple but i am the god to whom it is devoted  
_ _do not presume to tell me how i may decorate my altar_ ”

—weirdmonsterling.tumblr.com 

 

I spend all of the next school day deeply uneasy. I’ve been having a tough time focusing on class ever since my cat turned into the God of Mischief, but it’s especially difficult to sit through it all today. I try working on fanfiction in my notebook, but instead, I find myself thinking about what’s happening to me now and how to articulate it. Over the past week, I’ve amassed pages—most comprised of fragmented little sentences—in my notebook describing the Primordial god I glimpsed out of my window, describing Trouble’s powers, his voice, his eyes…

People are asking for the new chapter—some have even sent concerned messages asking if something has happened to me—but for the first time in my life, I can’t pull myself out of reality long enough to give it to them. All I can think about is Trouble and this vague approaching danger I don’t yet understand. Part of me wants to message my friends about it, tell Captain Q, and Jaimie Sparrow, and V4Vector about everything that’s happening… But I can’t. There’s no one I can talk to about any of this except the God of Mischief himself. And he talks _a lot_ …

_Whenever my mom and sister aren’t around, he’s always pacing around, as a cat or a man, asking questions, commenting on every other thing I do, or just rambling to himself about traffic, or electricity, or the English language, or the flight patterns of migratory birds._

_“Seriously, do you ever shut up?” I demanded one day when I pulled out one of my earbuds to find that he was still babbling out the window at the chickadees in the yard._

_“I don’t care for the sound of silence.”_

_“Yeah, well how the hell did you cope while you were under cover? You couldn’t talk to anyone while you were a cat.”_

_He shrugged. “You talked to me when I was just a cat.”_

_“I was talking to myself,” I said. “I thought you couldn’t understand.”_

_“But you wished I could.”_

_“Right,” I said dismissively, but I couldn’t actually deny it._

_And from then on, we went back to our conversations. Sometimes I just talk at him like I did when he was Muffin. Sometimes he participates. Usually he transforms into a human to talk; he says that adjusting a cat’s mouth and throat for human speech is exceedingly uncomfortable and magically throwing his voice into my head is too much trouble. But if someone comes to the door, he can shrink back to his feline form—or sometimes just vanish entirely—in the blink of an eye. At first, the sight of a tall, dark man in my room is bizarre, but before long, his presence there has become as natural as the movement of the shadows cast on the walls or the unassuming padding of his cat feet._

_Weirdly enough, it’s not that different from when he was just Muffin. He perches somewhere, usually by the window, while I babble about whatever pops into my head. Yes, he talks back now—quips, and snarks, and laughs at my expense—but I feel like we had had something like that relationship before I knew his real identity. He always seemed to be considering me, laughing at me, messing with my head; now he’s just added a verbal dimension to that. And somehow, it doesn’t seem strange at all. Annoying, yes, but not strange._

And now I’m writing whole _pages_ about Trouble in my notebook. _Dammit! Fanfiction._ I’m supposed to be outlining _fanfiction_ right now. Seriously, I never thought I would have to smack myself into writing my own stories, but the days keep going by and, with each one, people are getting increasingly confused and annoyed with the absence of a new chapter. I’ve never missed updating by more than a day and now I’ve gone a whole week without producing the chapter I promised. Trouble, for whatever reason, seems to think it’s important that I retain my followers, so I guess I should knock _something_ out for them. Better late than never.

I do manage to get a solid outline and a few paragraphs finished by the time I get home. When I sit down to type it up, I stare at the screen for a long time, then stare at the chapter outline in my notebook, then stare at the screen some more…

“Everything alright up there, Purple Magpie?” Trouble asks, slinking up beside my chair on his white feet.

“Alright… not great. I haven’t been able to update for ages, and I can’t answer any of my messages, and none of my followers even know why—”

“Why don’t you get on your Twibbler and _tell_ them why?”

“That’s not what it’s—never mind. You know why I can’t tell them. We’ve been over this. They’d think I was insane and, unlike you, I don’t _want_ people to think I’m a trolling whack-job.”

“Dull… but fair enough.” Sauntering around the desk, he straightens up into his human form and rolls his shoulders. “But you can at least lie, can’t you? Come up with some more plausible excuse for your persisting silence?”

“I don’t like lying to my followers.”

“Right, right. Of course not. That’s why you told Princess Kanna you _adored_ that oneshot she wrote for you last week.”

“It was… it was okay,” I try, even though that’s probably—definitely—a lie. Princess Kanna’s ideas are always cliché and her word choice cringe-worthy, but… “It was cute.”

“Is _that_ why you grimaced through the whole thing?”

“Well—fluff isn’t really my thing—”

“You also say you have to go eat dinner every other time someone asks to RP with you.”

“Okay, I only do that when it’s Kitsune Cutie asking. You’d understand if you read her RP ideas… or… honestly any text post she’s written ever.”

“Kitsune Cutie…” Trouble’s eyes narrow. “Is she the one who left the page-long comment on _Roads Apart_ about how everyone should use gender-neutral pronouns for Loki because he’s gender-liquid?”

“Gender- _fluid_ ,” I correct. “And, yes, that’s the one. She’s also the one who comments on literally every chapter of everything to berate the author about the lack of trigger warnings.”

“I see… so, she’s a little confrontational.”

“More than a little. Do you know what she… well, just look.” I turn to my computer and pull up my dash to find the post. “Look at what she just wrote in response to Jaimie Sparrow’s post about how she’s thinking of getting some glasses frames to complement her new hairstyle.” I turn the screen so he can read:

 

_I actually find this really offensive. Some of us literally need glasses to see wat’s in front of us. Please don’t appropriate my disability_

 

“Okay, okay, I get the social justice thing. I’ve participated in a lot of those conversations, but these social justice bloggers… sometimes I just want to strangle them.”

“That’s not very Catholic of you.”

“It’s just. Okay, I don’t know if this is the bigoted Catholic White Man in me talking, but… First they talk about how important all these terms and identifiers are, and they’re all like ‘don’t erase bisexuals,’ and ‘don’t erase this or that kind of gender,’ ‘the distinction between sex and gender is so important,’ ‘correctly gendering a person is so important.’ But then they’re like ‘oh, but gender doesn’t really mean this or that,’ ‘it’s all fake, it’s just a construct,’ ‘it means whatever it means to the individual,’ but then it’s like… how is it even a thing at all. If the word doesn’t have a fixed meaning… if it’s all subjective, then you can’t really use it to make an objective point. If it just means anything… then it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Silly Chavez,” Trouble laughs. “You’re thinking with logic. But if your fellow human beings were creatures of logic, I wouldn’t exist.”

“So, what are we if we’re not creatures of logic?” I ask, not sure I really want to hear his answer.

“Like me, you mortals are creatures of _ravenous selfishness_.”

“Great. Lovely. But… _what_ does that have to do with Kitsune Cutie and the other SJWs making up names for things and then flip-flop on what they mean every five minutes?”

“To name a thing is to give it a certain power… but also to take away some of its power.”

“Um… what?” I say, wondering if he’s just doing that thing where he deliberately confuses me just to watch me verge on an emotional breakdown.

“A name gives a thing the power of clarity. But, at the same time, it takes away its mystery, its fluidity. People ‘flip-flop’ as you say, because they want both kinds of power—the mystery and definition.”

And that… actually makes sense, I realize, with some surprise. “But… you _can’t_ have both. Logically, you can’t have something that’s firmly defined and fluid at the same time. You just can’t.”

“But if you can bamboozle people with enough words, you can trick them into letting you have both. That’s what all humans try to do, even if they don’t quite realize that that’s what they’re doing. As I said, people are selfish. People are _greedy_. Not just with riches, but the terms, and titles, and legacies they claim for their own. A word, correctly placed, can be as powerful as a bribe or a battering ram. Everyone knows this. So they hungrily hoard as many words as they can for their own… whether or not they have any logical right to them.

“People want to understand themselves, but they also like to fancy themselves mysterious and complex. They like to belong to communities of the like-minded, but they also like to think of themselves as special and unique. They want to reap the benefits of belonging to a privileged group, but they also want to claim sympathy for being underprivileged. They want to be respected like adults but coddled like children. People play with these words so much… because they’re all trying to position themselves the exact way they want in their communities and their own minds.”

“Well, that’s… a crappy reason to mess around with words,” I frown. Words _need_ to have a clear meaning. The idea of people trying to change around those meanings just so they could boost their self-esteem or grab some extra credit annoys probably a little more than it should.

“But Chavez, is that fair? Can you really blame your fellow mortals for wanting all the power and privilege they can get their hands on?”

“Yes. Or—no, I’m just… all I’m saying is that if you’ve decided to define yourself one way, you should stick to it… all the time, not just when it’s convenient for you.”

“Is that so?” He smiles, running a finger along the edge of my desk. “I noticed on your driver’s license, under race, it says ‘Caucasian.’”

“Well… it’s not a lie.”

“‘Latina’ wouldn’t have been a lie either.”

“No,” I said, “but thanks to jerk-offs like Alejo and Luis, the police in this city aren’t super friendly with Hispanic high school kids. If I get pulled over or something, I don’t want them to think I’m… I’d rather they see me as white. I look more white than I do Latina anyway. Why invite the racism?”

“Fair enough,” Trouble nods, sliding his hands over some of the loose papers on my desk. “But then… on this college application form, under race, you’ve checked ‘Hispanic.’”

“Well, yeah. But that’s because lots of schools give out scholarships to high-performing Hispanic…” I trail off as I realize what I’ve just admitted. “Okay, but I literally _am_ Latina _and_ White,” I protest. “If they’re going to make me check one box or the other, what’s wrong with checking the one that’s not going to bite me in the ass later?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” he shrugs with an infuriating smile, “But there are those who might say that if you’ve decided to define yourself one way, you should stick to it all the time, not just when it’s convenient for you.”

“Are you calling me a hypocrite?”

“I’m calling you a human.”

“So… yes.”

“Yes.” He grins.

“W-well… well, if I’m a hypocrite, then Kitsune Cutie is the queen of the hypocrites. She’s always policing everyone’s use of this word or that word and insisting that they respect the fact that she thinks she’s a time-travelling fox spirit from feudal Japan. Then she goes and says stuff like… oh, what was that thing she went off about last week? Just a second. I’m going to pull it up. There. That.” I turn the laptop to show him a posted photo of a little blonde girl in a kimono and point to the comments below:

 _ KitsuneCutie _ _:_

_please don’t reappropriate my culture. It’s offensive and disrespectful. uwu_

_Wholocktopus :_

_KitsuneCutie, aren’t you_ American _? How about you don’t tell OP to treat an ethnicity you’re not even a part of?_

_ KitsuneCutie _ _:_

_omg how about you don’t put me in a box. you do know thats oppression. I can’t believe people still refuse to accept my identity. its really sad for me._

 

“She _is_ American, for the record,” I say through my teeth.

“If she enrages you so much, why are you sitting here telling me about it? Why not just tell her to her face… or… screen?”

“I… can’t.” I sigh. “She’s one of my oldest readers. Also, she’s black, so…”

“So… what? Admittedly, I haven’t been around for a while, but last time I checked, stupidity didn’t favor any race in particular.”

“Yeah but… She’s probably suffered worse prejudice than I have and I don’t really know if I have any business telling her—”

“That she’s not a Japanese fox?”

“I—no—it’s just that… well, she also has really bad depression—and—”

“What the hell does depression have to do with it?” Trouble demands. “Depressed people can be wrong, can’t they?”

“Of course they can, but any time anyone tries to call her on her shit, she threatens to commit suicide… or pulls the race card… or both, and I just _really_ don’t want to get into that.”

“So, you’re afraid of looking mean?”

“I… no—maybe. And also, I just don’t _want_ to be mean.”

“You don’t think it would be just a little bit satisfying?”

“Maybe a little.” _Maybe a lot_. “But it _wouldn’t_ be worth the backlash.”

“Whatever.” He sighs wearily. “It’s your frog.”

“… You mean ‘blog’?”

“Blog. Right. _Blog_.” He shakes his head.

“You know for a god of language arts, you kind of suck at picking up words.”

“There’s a lot to pick up,” he snaps. “Tell me you’ve never gone to Mexico after five or six years in the U.S. made an idiot of yourself using outdated slang.”

“Okay, fair enough.” That _has_ actually happened to me.

“Now imagine coming back to over six thousand languages with _centuries_ of slang to catch up on.”

“Fine. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop making fun of you.”

“Now, Chavez,” he puts on a sad pouting face. “I don’t feel like you’re being respectful of my experience. I feel _marginalized_.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Why? You have writing to do? Or are you just going to sit there staring at your computer like an idiot?”

“Okay, _what_ is it with you and your weird obsession with me releasing new fanfiction? I thought there was actually important stuff we needed to worry about. You know, creepy eyeless things outside the window, trying to get my family out of town so they don’t die.”

“I told you I’d take care of your family. Just worry about your new chapter.”

“How? _How_ am I supposed to concentrate on fanfiction when my _family_ is in danger?”

“You just do your work and let me do mine.”

“And what _is_ your work, exactly?”

Before Trouble can answer, my dad calls up the stairs. “Hey, Jocelyn? I just found out I have an urgent conference I need to attend tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I say, standing up to go to the top of the stairs.

“Yeah. Lewis was supposed to go, but he’s come down with something. So… you and your sister will have to stay at your mother’s the rest of this week.”

“But we can’t,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Mom has an art showing in Milwaukee this week, remember? And—I mean, I’m fine, but where’s Gabby going to stay?”

The rule was that I was old enough to stay home alone; Gabby was not. Well… actually, it wasn’t so much a matter of age and more a matter of who was more likely to invite a hundred friends over for a party in the house, but nobody says that aloud.

“ _Shit_ ,” my dad mutters. “ _Art show in Milwaukee_ … Um…” He thinks for a moment. “Do you know how your mother might feel about taking Gabby along with her?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I mean, I don’t know where she’ll be staying or anything.”

“Hmm… well, I _guess_ Gabrielle could come with me… She’s done with her semester tomorrow isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s good… And what about you? You’re okay to stay home alone?”

“I have to,” I shrug. “I have finals this week.”

“Right. Well, um… I guess I—I’ll call your mother and figure something out for Gabby. You just… focus on your studies.”

“Okay, Dad,” I give him a warm smile before ducking back into my room and closing the door. “Trouble, you’re not going to believe…” but I trail off when I see him lounging back in my spare chair with a pleased smirk on his face. “ _You._ ” I say as the realization hits me. “You did this… to get my family out of town.”

“I told you I’d take care of it.”

“How did you do it?”

“Easily,” he grins.

“But… how?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” he raises an eyebrow at me.

“Yes,” I say emphatically even though I probably don’t.

“Well, I actually started a few weeks ago. Remember that day none of you could find me in the house and Gabby thought I’d run away and got all upset?”

“Yes.”          

“I actually took that day to fly around the neighboring states and sabotage some of your mother’s competition for that art show in Milwaukee to make sure she would be asked to attend.”

“You _what_?”

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized,” he says dismissively. “All I did was hit them with three-day migraines so their submissions came out just a touch worse than they otherwise would have. Honestly, your mother’s work was good enough that she probably would have gotten in anyway; I just wanted to make sure.”

“And my dad?” I say. “How’d you swing this conference thing?” Dad almost never has unexpected conference calls.

“Ahh, that,” Trouble grins. “That was a quicker job. But considering I just had one day to put it off, I think I did quite nicely.”

“Did… what exactly?” I ask.

“Well, your father’s co-worker Lewis Holland did not, in fact, come down with the flu. He is currently at home, alternately pacing the living room and crying his eyes out, with only his rage and a friendly six pack of beers for company.”

“Why?”

“Well… unfortunately, he caught his wife cheating on him last night and took it pretty hard. After throwing her out of the house, he decided he wasn’t ready to go to a conference or to face his colleagues at all after what happened, so he called in sick, poor thing.”

“Ms. Holland was _cheating on him_?” I say in disbelief. “But he seemed so nice.” Granted, I only met Mr. and Ms. Holland at the few of my dad’s work parties I had attended, but they always seemed like a really nice couple.

“Oh, she was _very nice,_ ” Trouble says with a dark smirk. “Better built than you would think, looking at her in her hospital scrubs, a _superb_ kisser—”

“Wait, wait, hold up. _You_ slept with Mr. Holland’s wife?”

“To be fair, so had half the hospital staff—”

“You _slept with his wife_?” I almost shout, and then put a hand to my mouth, hoping I haven’t drawn my dad’s attention from downstairs. “What the _fuck,_ Trouble?”

“We didn’t actually get that far, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t really. I… I can’t believe you—”

“What?” He says as though he doesn’t see anything wrong with his methods. “I needed him to catch her _that night_ and she hadn’t planned a secret rendezvous with the hospital administrator _or either_ of the strapping young interns she’s been favoring recently, so I improvised,” he shrugs.

“You… improvised?” I say weakly, still trying to get my head around the idea that Trouble put the moves on my dad’s co-worker’s wife.

“Yes. I called her—imitating Lewis’ voice—and told her it was going to be a late night at the office and not to wait up. Then I changed into a gorgeous chunk of chocolate surgeon just like she likes and asked if she’d like to get a drink with me and, well, she _never_ says ‘no’ to abs like that. Really, she’s usually more discrete with her affairs, but this time she lost herself a little. I can have that effect on people… when I choose to. And before long, we were in her house in the bedroom, just in time for dear Lewis to come home and walk in on us.” He laughs. “Oh, you should have seen the looks on their faces!”

“You’re _horrible!_ ”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You seriously _ruined someone’s marriage_ to get my dad out of town?”

“It was ruined before I ever touched it. I just tore down the beams of hope and denial supporting its hollow corpse.”

“You’re an _asshole._ ”

“Yes,” he agrees without argument, “But if you really think about it, all I really did was save them months—possibly years—of mistrust, anxiety, and sexual frustration. It was a kindness.”

“I—I can’t believe you slept with… I’m not talking to you,” I say, holding up my hand. “I’m just not— Nope. We’re not talking.”

“Come now, Jocelyn,” he murmurs, suddenly close to my ear. “Don’t be jealous.” His voice drops to a low croon. “I’ll do nice things with you too if you want.”

The sound sends a shivering shock of something down my spine and suddenly my own voice doesn’t seem to work so well.

“I-I’m not—” I stutter before I get ahold of the proper indignation. “You have a _spectacular_ misunderstanding of this situation if you think I’m…I am _not_ jealous.”

“Hmm…” He breathes so close to my neck I swear I could almost feel his lips brush my skin for a moment. Then he swings around in front of me in a single lithe, silken motion. “And what _are_ you?”

“I’m… disgusted… is… a word that comes to mind,” I say, even as I try to ignore the fact that his face… those sharp devious eyes are suddenly so close… so close I can see the tiny threads of color running through his black irises.

“Mmm.” A smile twists the corner of his mouth. “You don’t _look_ disgusted.”

He moves a fraction closer and I feel an irrepressible flutter warmth spreading from the pit of my stomach, tingling… oh… and shit, if I look into those eyes for one more second, I’m going to fall forward and grab his face between my hands and—oh… Shit, this is a problem. Abort! Abort!

“Um…” My slowed brain goes with the simplest possible solution and just lifts my hand up to slap it down over that enchanting face, effectively hiding it from view. “No… thank you…”

I extend my arm, pushing the god’s face firmly away from me, trying to ignore the warmth of his skin against mine and the subtle brush of his smile against the edge of my palm as he breaks into a dark chuckle.

“Right, right,” He says, drawing back and shaking my hand from his face. “You have your _morals_ to uphold… _speaking_ of which, what are you planning to do about this whole dance business?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you told Lucy you couldn’t go with her, no doubt dashing the poor girl’s dreams of luscious lesbian action. But now your whole family thinks you have a date and you’ve blown 50 dollars on a nice dress you’ll otherwise never wear.”

“You had to bring _that_ up.” I shake my head. “I mean… It’d just be stupid to not go after spending all that money. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to have some other occasion to wear a slinky dress. Why did you tell me to buy a dress?”

“I told you to spend a little time with your sister. You decided to get the dress on your own.”

“I know, I know,” I sigh because it’s probably not fair to blame him for that part. “I just don’t want to waste it.”

“So call Lucy and tell her you’ll take her.”

“I can’t do that. You can’t just turn someone down and then go back on it when you change your mind.”

“Then go by yourself.”

“I can’t do that either. Then I just look like a jerk for turning her down.”

“Then go with me.”

“I—wh-what?”

“You can take me as your date if you like. I can be the Lucas you made up. I can be whoever you want me to be.”

“What… b-but…”

“Sorry. Would you like me to ask it more traditionally?” He whips a rose out of thin air and holds it out to me. “Jocelyn, I was wondering if you would do me the honor of attending the midwinter dance with me.”

I just sit there, eyeing the rose, trying to ignore the stupid way my heart just fluttered. There must be a catch… this seems like an uncharacteristically nice thing for him to offer.

“Don’t pretend you don’t find the idea a little bit appealing,” he says. “How many times are you going to get the chance to dance with a god?”

“But… you don’t go to my school,” I say lamely. “You need an ID to get in.”

“I have one.”

“What?”

“I made it ages ago in case I got so bored in this stupid house I actually felt like going to class. So what do you say?” He asks with a sweet smile.

“I… I don’t… why does this even matter to you?” I ask, opting to change the subject instead of coming up with a response.

“You will be out after dark.”

“What are you, my dad?”

“The pawns Fate sends after us move mostly in the night.”

I freeze at that, my hands clenching. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s immensely irritating, actually. He knows that nighttime is when I like to be active, so that’s when he puts out his search parties to try to capture and counteract me. By keeping my movement limited at night, he limits my influence on the waking world. Otherwise, I’m sure he would be working mostly during the clearly-lit daytime. I just thought you should know that our chances of being discovered sooner rather than later will increase if you are out and moving around at night.”

“So, you’d have to be there,” I say, “to protect me.”

“And to dance. I do love a good dance.”

“Or I could just not go.”

“Or you could just not go. It’s up to you.” He twirls the rose between his fingers with the sweetest almost hopeful smile.

“I… um…” My heart is going crazy in my chest just looking at those softly laughing eyes and there are these warm tingles inside me, but no… _no_. I am not accepting what is possibly a literal dace with the Devil… not even to avoid a lot of awkwardness… not even when he looks into me with those heated liquid black eyes. “I don’t think so. I-I think I’ll just… you know… stay here. It’ll be safer, right?”

“Safer,” Trouble says, standing up and spinning the rose into a disappearing curl of red smoke. “Not nearly as fun, but if you really want to spend your last few weeks of life shut up in this room.”

“Sorry. Y-you’re just not… You’re not really my type.”

“You have a type, do you?” Trouble raises his eyebrows in amusement. “I thought you’d never even dated.”

“I—I haven’t, but I know what I like.”

“Do you?” Trouble says lightly. “And what do you like?”

“I don’t… well, I’m only eighteen,” I backpedal clumsily. “It’s not like I’ve given a ton of thought to the kind of guy I’d like to date, or marry, or—”

“Clearly you’ve given it _some_ thought,” Trouble smiles.

“What do you mean?”

“‘The _guy._ ’ You seem certain it’s a man you’ll be marrying.”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t that the usual—”

“You’re bisexual.”

“What… how do you know that?”

“I can always tell what people like,” he flashes a grin at me.

“Oh? Is that one of your god powers?”

“No. That’s centuries of experience seducing humans. And anyway, it says so on your blog.” That’s right. I keep forgetting he’s been reading my online activities over my shoulder all this time. God, of course he knows. “Not to mention that the evidence that’s constantly all over your runway.”

“Dashboard,” I correct.

“Whatever.”

“Okay, so I… I might like girls,” I mutter, feeling my cheeks flush faintly. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to marry one. I _can’t_.”

“ _Ohh,_ now _that’s_ an ugly word.” Trouble grimaces. “What do you mean ‘ _can’t_ ’?”

“I mean, even if this state—or whatever state I’m living in however many years from now—legalizes gay marriage, it would ruin my relationship with my Dad. He’s Catholic. As far as he’s concerned, homosexuality is just… _wrong_. He doesn’t think gay people are pure evil or anything… just that what they’re doing is wrong and should stop; I don’t think he’d disown me, but... I know he’d be disappointed in me forever. I don’t want that.”

“And you haven’t brought this up with him.” It’s not a question.

“I don’t need to,” I say shortly. “I know him; I know his views. I know he wouldn’t be okay with me having a wife—or even a girlfriend—so that’s just somewhere I’m not going to go. I can’t do that to him.”

“And what about you?”

“ _I_ would rather give myself a little nudge in the Catholic direction than have a dad who can’t talk to me.” I shrug. “I like guys anyway. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Isn’t it? Biting down on your desires… is that not painful?”

“Not as painful as the alternative.”

“Hmm.” Trouble leans back against the dresser for a moment, considering me. “Is this what you always do, then? Choose the path of least resistance?”

“I’m choosing to keep my family together.”

“I think that ship’s already sailed, love.”

“You’re a dick.”

“At the moment,” he smiles. “But at least I don’t run from my own nature just to please someone else.”

“I…” I begin in frustration, but I can’t really defend myself… because that’s precisely what I always do… and always have. I always take the path of least resistance. “I just don’t want any—”

“Trouble,” he smiles. “So you say.” He shakes his head then, clicking his tongue. “Your social justice blogger friends would be ashamed.”

“I don’t care what they think,” I snap.

“Now, _that’s_ the spirit.”

“What are you even—” I shake my head. “Never mind. I need to get some studying in before dinner.”

“That doesn’t look like studying,” he says, nodding at my laptop screen. “That looks like your _dash_.”

“I know, it—it won’t close, okay?” I say, clicking furiously on the minimize button. “My computer’s being a jerk. Come on,” I groan at the screen.

“Those are some beautiful eyes,” Trouble comments, leaning over my shoulder to look at the gifset that has frozen in the middle of my screen. “Who is that?”

“That’s _you_ ,” I say, resorting to repeatedly Ctrl + Alt + Deleting to no effect. “As interpreted by the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

“Oh, I see. It says so in the little things you always—”

“The tags.”

“Yes, yes, the tags,” he tilts his head at the gifset as my computer persists in ignoring my force quit commands. “So, this is how the girls like me these days…” He hovers there for a moment, studying the images. “What is he _wearing_?”

“Nobody knows,” I mutter distractedly, fiddling with the charger as though that’s going to make a difference.

“He’s awfully pale, isn’t he? So _tall_ …” Trouble’s knuckle’s press into the desk beside me as his hands grow lighter and he begins to stretch upward.

“Okay, no.” I reach up and clamp a hand down on top of his head. “You’re not allowed to get any taller. I already feel short around you.”

“Don’t feel bad. I’m one of the smallest in my family too.” He drops to his knees to rest his elbows on the desk beside me as his paled skin returns to its usual olive hue and a touch of green retreats from his irises. “Better?”

“So, can you just look like whoever you want?” I ask, turning to look at him in fascination.

“With considerable effort.” Trouble says. “Forms are like… clothes. The human male appearance you see here was a favorite of mine for a century or two, so I slide into it quite naturally… like a pair of well-worn shoes. I have several favorites—this one, the spider, the raven, and lately the little black housecat with those precious white mittens—that fit me like skin. New variations on those forms—different coloring, or height, or build—are more like ill-fitting clothes or… that coat with the shoulders that aren’t cut quite right or the stiff shoes that haven’t quite molded to your foot. They work well enough, but they’re less comfortable. Sometimes they blister.”

“So, the form of a tiny little spider is more comfortable for you than the form of some _people._ ”

“Yes.”

“That… how does that make any sense? When you’re that small, don’t you feel, I don’t know… _squished_?”

Trouble laughs at that, the sound ringing around the room. “I am the embodiment of all mischief and ambiguity in the human world, Chavez. If I had to literally squeeze all of myself into any form I took, it would suffocate me. I, in my fullest sense, am I as big and far-reaching as my web, always many places all over the world. My physical form is just a little shell I carve out of that larger world. My consciousness goes inside that shell while my spirit is everywhere.”

“Okay… I’m just going to pretend that makes sense,” I say and turn back to my computer to find that it _still_ stuck on the frozen Loki gifset, completely unresponsive.

“You can adjust your color,” I say. “So, you can like… adjust your race?”

“Naturally.”

“Wow… that must be nice.”

“I can turn into any species I choose and you’re most impressed by my ability to make minute changes to my hair and skin. _Humans_.” He rolls his eyes.

“Hey, I didn’t say changing species wasn’t cool. I just thought—”

“Oh, I wasn’t rolling my eyes at you so much as your species in general. You’re right to recognize that the most significant shape-shifting, trapped in the morass of human superficiality, is making variations on one’s human appearance and persona. In fact, you’re not a bad shape-shifter yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

Trouble doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he crosses to the shelf where I keep the framed pictures of my family and considers them for a moment before picking one up and holding out to me. It’s a photo of Gabby and me with our grandparents when we went to visit them in Mexico last summer.

“Who is this?” He asks, tapping one of the smiling faces.

“That’s me.”

“Is it?” He tilts his head, looking down at the picture and then back at me.

“She’s not dressed like you. She doesn’t stand like you. Does she even speak the same language?”

“Well—no—I mean… I was speaking Spanish then, obviously. My dad’s parents don’t speak English. I dress different when I visit them because I know my grandma likes seeing me in dresses. And I… do I really _stand_ differently?”

I take a closer look at the picture and realize that he’s right. My back is straighter, my hands are folded in front of me in a way that’s probably more feminine than the way I usually hold them… and I’m smiling widely, with my teeth, just like my grandma and grandpa. I don’t do that in pictures with my mom’s family… they all smile with their mouths closed… so I do the same.

“Shit, you’re right,” I mutter as Trouble places a picture of me with my mom’s family on the desk next to the first one. The two Jocelyns really do look like two different people. I always worry that I’m not Mexican enough for my dad’s family and not small-town white enough for my mom’s. I guess I never gave myself enough credit for my ability to shift from one to the other with just a smile and shift in posture.

“You see, despite the fact that your skin is a little pasty and freckly for your father’s side of the family and your hair and eyes are a little dark for your mother’s, you’ve taught yourself to become the perfect Mexican and the perfect small-town American. It’s not that you fundamentally _are_ one or the other. You just have their respective cultural trappings in your toolkit to pick and choose at will. Color, clothing, language… it’s all part of the grand illusion we show others to get what we want from them.”

“Or just to fit in,” I say.

“Only if what you want from the people in question is acceptance.”

“Isn’t that always what people want?” I ask.

“Is it?” Trouble leans back against the desk beside me. “Those bullies on their bikes mocked you for not being a proper Latina and you wouldn’t speak a word of your fluent Spanish to them. Clearly you weren’t too interested in _their_ acceptance.”

“Well, that’s because they’re morons,” I say fiercely. “They’re the reason white people look down on people like my dad. I don’t _want_ to fit in with them.”

“What _do_ you want from them?”

“I don’t know… just to be left alone. And, most of the time, not responding to bullies is the best way to get them to do that.”

“There, you see?” He says, “There are many ways to utilize—or hide—various traits to achieve the ends you want.” And I can’t help but wonder if this form is tailored to me… to get what he wants from me… it must be. I just don’t know what it is he wants… “You shift form at will to suit your purposes, just as I do… as anyone living on the lines between worlds _must_ or risk tumbling into the cracks between them. Your range might be limited compared to mine, but between your two races, you’re probably just as good at passing as I am. Of course, instead of using your ability to swindle, or unsettle, or seduce people like I do, you just use them to _fit in_ or be _left alone_.”

“But it’s not the same,” I protest. “Sure I can change the way I stand and talk, but I can’t make myself taller or change my skin color. You can literally look however you want. Isn’t that more than just _passing_ …? I mean, especially if you’re a deity of all of humanity—which, I assume means, you’re not more one race than another—can’t you literally _be_ any race or ethnicity you want?”

“Yes…” Trouble says slowly, “and no. It is true that I can radically alter the way people see me at first glance with adjustments to my physical features, but I never achieve complete acceptance. I can inspire fear and respect, or I can pass unnoticed through any community if I choose, but unlike some I can never _fit_.”

“I… I don’t get it. Why not?”

“I am, by my nature, an outsider. When people look at me, they see someone enough like them that they can see a glimmer of themselves in my eyes, different enough from them to excite a certain measure of curiosity and fear. Plainly put, no matter who beholds me, I am _exotic_ … and all the word implies.”

“Huh…” I look him up and down and realize that’s exactly what he is. Exotic.

He’s clearly beautiful… but in a really unclear way, never in quite the way I expect. He always seems to be glimmering and lilting between one thing and another, staying just familiar enough to be approachable, just foreign enough to keep a little tingle of apprehension running through me.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he says. “It’s is like an aura. And no matter what skin color—or species, for that matter—I put on, it doesn’t go away.”

“So you… you’re _always_ the foreigner,” I say and just the thought of someone entirely unable to fit in anywhere… it makes me unbearably sad. “… I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he says casually. “It’s a wonderful thing to be… the mysterious stranger. People who see you that way will fear you, wonder at you, step lightly around you, assume that you know things they don’t because you are not like them. There is, of course, another edge to that sword…”

“What do you mean?”

His fingers ghost over my notebook, turning a few of the pages, and he reads aloud: “ _I never thought of myself as particularly punchable._ Ellipses. _Why am I punchable?_ ” He looks up at me. “Why am I punchable?”

“What are you trying to say?”

He lets the notebook fall shut, his fingers splaying out across the cover. “In order to control something, to exercise power over it, one must first define it. If others can’t define you, they can’t own you. The undefinable being answers to no one. And that will always, _always_ frighten people.”

“You think Luis and his friends were… _afraid_ of me?”

“I think they would be right to be. You have powers they don’t… power to slip in between worlds, in between languages, races, social classes, power to negotiate all boundaries they can’t… And speaking of power.” He drums his fingers on the top of my computer screen, his pinky twitching faintly, “You should really teach me how to use your interwebs some time.”

“Okay, you know it’s called the Inter _net_ right? Not the Inter _webs_. I mean, some people call it that, but kind of just as a joke.”

“Nets, webs,” he rolls his eyes. “It makes little difference to me. It all falls within my domain and I need to be able to use it.”

“Your domain?” I repeat confused.

“The in-between,” he replies as though this somehow clarifies things. “I am a god of the intermediary and what is your Inter _net_ , but a vast web of the threads between individuals, a collection of thoughts and words between the hardness of realities.”

“If it’s your domain, why do you need _me_ to show you how to use it?”

“Well, ‘ _need_ ’ is a strong word. But I do appreciate a native guide.”

“Okay, I’d love to teach you all about the Internet,” I say, resorting to just pressing random keys in my annoyance. “But that could take time and I have finals to study for and—”

At that moment, my screen goes dark.

“Great…” I hold down the power button for a few moments, but nothing happens. “Come on, don’t die on me!” Still nothing. “Son of a bitch!”

“Does this happen often?” Trouble asks, reaching over my shoulder to prod at the power button himself.

“Once or twice a year,” I sigh. “It’s an old laptop. Dad says he’ll replace it with a better one if I get into a good college.”

“May I?” Trouble asks, moving to pick up the computer.

“Go ahead,” I say. “But I don’t think there’s anything you can do to fix it.”

“I figure things out quickly,” the god says, turning the laptop over to run a finger down one of the seams.

“It’s technology, not magic,” I say.

“You say that as though the two are mutually exclusive,” Trouble chuckles.

“You don’t even know what a ‘dash’ is… or how to search something and come up with better results than a dumb teenager’s fanfiction,” I say with a smile.

“This is true,” Trouble says, still running his fingers along the edges of the laptop. “What say I make you a deal? I will fix this ‘ _lap-top_ ’ of yours and in return, you will teach me the ways of your interwebs.”

“Really? You’re going to fix my laptop? What? With your magic powers?”

“With my intellect,” he smiles.

“So, you missed the discovery of how electricity works and you think you can fix my—”

“I know how electricity works,” he says indignantly. “Centuries of dodging lightning bolts and surfing on thunder, you figure a few things out.”

“How the hell do you surf on thunder?”

He grins. “Wouldn’t _you_ like to know. Anyway, you mortals figured out how to assemble and repair these computer things; how hard can it be? Give me a day.”

“ _A day_?” I laugh. The guy barely knows how to use a light switch and he thinks he can figure out the mechanics of a _computer_ in a _day_? “You’re on, God of Mischief.”

 


	12. Shade Without Colour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, dear readers! And sorry for the pretentious use of the most obvious poem ever. I couldn't resist :)
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com

“ _Don’t be afraid of spiders! Spiders are your friends! Sorry, that was confusing wording. All your friends are secretly spiders! Better_.”  
—Night Vale podcast

 

_So, now the God of Mischief has taken an interest in computers. He’s so fascinated by the Internet and all this technology we’ve developed since he last checked in on us, it’s hard to believe he would willingly miss out on all that time. He tells me he was ‘preoccupied’ for the duration of Fate’s takeover— and who knows how many hundreds of years that took. Preoccupied doing what? Whatever it was, it seems to have affected him somehow, affected his powers. I want to ask where he was all that time, but I_

I pause to realize I’ve started writing in my notebook about Trouble again… like he’s part of a fanfiction I’m planning to post. But none of this is fanfiction and I’m certainly not posting it. It’s real life… _my_ life. Yet writing about it as though it’s a story is strangely calming. In a story, I can sort things out and make sense of them. In a story, I have control…

“And… Jocelyn,” my history teacher’s voice startles me out of my thoughts. “Who led  the Lakota, the Arapaho, and the Cheyenne forces against Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn?”

“Um…” I flounder for a moment. “Uh… Crazy Horse?”

“Very good,” she says and moves on to the next review question. It’s the last day before finals start, so pretty much everything has been review. I know I should be focusing on studying for finals—or at the very least, getting my readers a new fanfiction chapter—but the mysterious gods and the prospect of an apocalypse are making that kind of difficult.

 

When I get home after school, I slide my backpack off and stick a couple of frozen tamales in the microwave.

“I’m home!” I call just to check if my dad and Gabby are unexpectedly still home. They were supposed to leave an hour or so ago, but if they’re still here, they should respond. If not, Trouble should come striding into the kitchen and report on any god or demon activity in the neighborhood. Oddly enough, there is no response at all.

“Hello?” I make my way through the house, sticking my head into each room to find them all empty. “Anyone home?” I say as my round of the house brings me back into the kitchen. The only response is the beep of the microwave telling me the tamales are finished.

“Muffin? Here, Muffin. Or are you not responding to that anymore?” I step into my room and set the tamales down on my desk. “Hey, Trouble! God of Mischief! Lord of the Crossroads?... Liesmith?”

“Don’t call me that,” Trouble’s voice snaps and I start, looking around for the source. I turn around the seemingly empty room in confusion for a moment before my eyes fall on a little black something perched on top of my laptop… something with eight horrible, creeping legs. _Spider!_

It’s a good thing I put the tamales down because I probably would have flung them when I started screaming. In moments, I’m snatching books up off the floor and hurling them at the tiny nightmare.

“Easy, easy there!” For a horrible moment, the spider expands, its disgusting legs rearing up in crunching contortions, before the horrific compound transforms into an exasperated god of mischief. “It’s just me.” He swats aside an old issue of _Journey into Mystery_ before rolling his shoulders and smoothing the last of the exoskeletal shine from the front of his coat. “You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t like spiders.”

My heart is still thudding in my chest. “ _Why_?” Is the only word I seem to manage, as the image of those terrible legs keeps crawling through my mind. “ _Why, why, why_ were you… _why?_ ” Trouble can turn into anything; _why_ would he want to be a spider?

“To go where my larger forms can’t,” he says. “I _do_ miss my opposable thumbs in arachnid form, but with enough practice, eight legs and a good set of mandibles can manage almost any—”

“No. You know, I really would rather not hear about this,” I say weakly.

“But I fixed your computer.”

“What?”

“Ta-daa!” Stepping aside, he flips my laptop open to display my password screen.

“Whoa. You… you really did it.” I say in astonishment. “But… how?”

“From the inside,” he beams, lacing his fingers together and flipping his hands over to crack his knuckles. “I spent the morning crawling through the other computers and electronic devices in the house and seeing how they worked. Once I had a frame of reference, it wasn’t difficult to fix your little laptop here.”

“Wait. So, you did this… as a _spider._ ” I say, grudgingly impressed.

“Well,” a short tilting shrug. “An exceptionally strong, dexterous, size-changing spider. I’m used to being a more traditional bug—the wrench in the workings, as it were—but I _can_ get things working again if I really want to.”

“Wow…” I say, sitting down at my desk. “I’m… I’m impressed. I… I guess you’re forgiven for turning into a spider. Just, please… never do that again. Not without warning me.”

“I don’t know,” he laughs. “The look on your face was pretty amusing. I might not be able to resist.”

“I’m serious!” I say in distress.

“Alright, alright,” he sighs. “Not without warning you first.”

“You promise?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “How far would you trust any promise from me?”

“Good point. Tamale?” I ask, picking up the plate to hold it out to him.

“Yes, thank you.”

“So, you _do_ eat?” I’ve been wondering about that, as he hasn’t asked for food, but I’ve noticed that several boxes of the Girl Scout cookies we bought from Gabby’s troop have gone missing.

“When the mood strikes me. I _did_ consume all that hideous cat food you gave me, did I not?”

“What? You don’t like salmon?”

“Not particularly.” He takes the hot tamale in his bare hand and unrolls it from its cornhusk shell. “Bad memories.” And he shoves half the tamale into his mouth, swallowing it in a single gulp.

“Whoa,” I say as he swallows the other half. “You were hungry, huh?”

“Always.”

“So… you won’t die without food; you’re just…?”

“Constantly ravenous,” he says. “One of the very few disadvantages to being me.”

“Well, that explains all the missing Girl Scout cookies,” I say. “You know I’m going to get blamed for that.”

“That’s why it’s the perfect crime.”

“If you really want food, all you have to do is ask,” I say.

“Oh, but stealing is so much more fun. Now, anyway, you have a deal to uphold,” he says, nodding toward the computer. “You will now teach me of your inter _net_.”

Shit. I wasn’t expecting him to actually _fix it_. I have finals tomorrow.

“Okay, I’ll show you some stuff,” I say. “But I have to take a couple of hours to study too, okay? My lit final is tomorrow.”

“Some stuff is good enough,” Trouble says, leaning over the back of my chair as I type in my password.

“So… where do you want to start?” I ask turning around and looking at him.

He just shrugs. “Wherever you want. I taught myself how to type on a series of library computers before I came here, so I can search things, and type words, and save them… after watching your screen all this time, I think that if I really needed to I could probably send an email, and post a thing on a blog, and find illegally uploaded movies… and porn. The important things.”

“Okay, so, you seem to know pretty much all the basics,” I say, forcing myself not to think about the pornographic content he may or may not have seen over my shoulder. “What do you need me for?”

“You’re fast,” he says. “I want to be fast.”

“Well, that’s mostly just a matter of practice,” I say. “But I can walk you through some of the things with all my keyboard shortcuts and stuff. If you figured out computer hardware in a day, I can’t imagine it’ll take too long.”

And it really doesn’t. I always thought my dad was fairly quick to pick up on computer things for an adult—at least faster than my mom who gets confused trying to send an email—but at some millions of years old, Trouble is the fastest learner I’ve ever seen. Half the things I start to tell him, he has already figured out by watching me or has just… intuited.

“The busty Russian girls don’t actually want to sleep with us,” he says when an ad pops up on one of my pirated video sites. “There are no Russian girls… or bored housewives… or magical weight loss pills. They just want to scam us into clicking on them.”

“Good,” I say closing the offending ad.

“And that isn’t the real ‘play’ button. It’s a lie to take us to more Russian girls.”

“ _Very_ good. How did you catch _that_ one?” Unless he’s seen this particular player before, how does he know what the ‘play’ button is supposed to look like?

“It’s off center by four pixels.”

Okay. So superhuman eyesight. That’s new. Though, I suppose, if he can transform into any animal, why would he settle on a human’s lame senses?

“Okay. So it looks like you’re all set to watch pirated videos,” I say. “Let’s move on to email. We can make you an account.”

“So, I can just type a message and the click of this button will instantly send it to someone anywhere in the world?” He says once we’ve set up the account and I’ve started to show him all the tools.

“If it works like it’s supposed to, yeah?”

“Just like your blog activities instantly appear to other people all over the world? And a video posted on a site will be immediately available to viewers everywhere?”

“Yeah, as long as your connection’s good, it’s all pretty much instantaneous.”

“That is _wonderful!_ ” He exclaims and I’m not quite prepared for the tremor of passion in his voice. “I make fun of your computers—that’s my job—but I don’t think I’ve told you that I _love_ this century. The advancements—in film and music, in communication, in transportation—it’s all amazing!”

“Well—yes,” I say, unable to keep from smiling at the look of rapture on his face. “I mean, I basically grew up with it so I don’t think about it much, but I guess it _is_ pretty amazing.”

“I…” Trouble stares at the screen as though in a trance and shakes his head. “I remember waking to language… Rudimentary at first, but then more sophisticated with each passing day, as we played like children, rolling sounds and ideas from tongue to tongue until they were more and more specific, and more nuanced, and more, more, more…” His voice has become low and dreamlike as his eyes stare through the bright screen into something far beyond anything I know.

“Those first days of light and language… I remember how new deities were born from new words almost the moment the ideas solidified into sound… New concepts dropping from curious human lips like seeds, touching down on the earth like bare feet, and sprouting in an instant, straightening up into blinking, breathing gods…”

His eyes are wide and alight with a precious fire I’ve never seen there before. He is amazingly—almost unbearably—beautiful like this, smiling without a trace of scorn, all aglow with shameless wonder.

“I tell you, Chavez,” he turns that fiery gaze on me and I feel like it could ignite me where I sit. “You will never know anything more beautiful than watching your thoughts spring from your words to take on a life of their own. I have lived to see ideas made into songs, and images, and written words. I have seen information carried by shout, but foot, by wings, and hooves, and ships… I always _hoped_ we would survive to see ideas made as fast as Power’s lightning. It seems mortal communication is finally quick enough to keep pace with me.” He laughs. “And it seems I’ve been able to stretch my web over the human world… without even being conscious of it. Heavens, I am fantastic, aren’t I?”

But in a moment the laughter fades from his face, along with the light… “I loved being part of the development of language, of song, and art, and writing. I wish… I wish I could have been part of this.”

I just look at him for a moment. What do I say to that? “Well… you were, weren’t you? Even if you weren’t, I don’t know, uh… around, this is still all your thing, right? The ‘in-between’? And you still _can_ be part of it,” I add, switching over to a note that makes a little more sense to me. “I mean, we made computers, and TVs, and the Internet and stuff while you were away, but people keep coming up with new technology all the time. It’s kind of the thing right now. I mean, phones. Have you seen phones these days? A new one comes out, like, every other day. I’m sure there’s still plenty for you to do.”

I finish my ramble, feeling a little bit—a lot bit—stupid. I don’t even know what I’m talking about… or why I’m suddenly jumping to comfort this obnoxious guy who has done nothing but make my life difficult. At least his usual smile has returned… although that might just be because he finds my attempts to articulate an idea amusing. He doesn’t say anything. He just sits there and smiles at me.

“Okay… well, I… I have to study now.” I say, resisting the urge to put my hood up and pull on the drawstrings until I disappear. “You can keep playing with the computer.” I push my laptop toward the god. “I don’t suppose it’s worth it telling you not to look at my porn.”

“Not even a little bit,” he replies nonchalantly.

“It looks like _The Avengers_ is half loaded,” I reach over and open up the pirated video tab I was using as a demonstration. “You could watch that with the headphones on. Or… do pretty much whatever you want. Just try to be quiet… please?”

“I will make you no promises.”

My desk at my dad’s is big enough that there’s enough space for two chairs, the laptop, and most of the contents of my Lit binder if we shift everything around right. The arrangement leaves us sitting rather close together, but I don’t mind… as long as he doesn’t turn into a spider… or blow into my ear like he did that one time. He’s like a five-year-old when it comes to sitting still.

I settle down to my schoolwork warily, expecting to be interrupted before thirty seconds have passed. But surprisingly enough, Trouble is quiet. Studying for Mr. Roth’s English class isn’t hard. In fact there’s barely any studying involved at all. We just have to be familiar with certain themes and symbols and be able to use them to analyze the poems and passages he puts on the final test. Confident that I understand all the literary devices on his list, I set aside that packet and instead decide to do a quick review of all the poems in the class. Some of them have been a bit murky for me and I want to make sure I have a halfway decent analysis prepared in my head for any one of them.

All the while, Trouble stares at the laptop screen in avid fascination, still except for his fidgeting fingers, and quiet except for the occasional murmur. “Magic,” he whispers at one point, and “How…?” and later on, “Oh dear, he _is_ charming, isn’t he? Well played soulless corporate overlords, well played. Sorry.” He adds over the top of the computer. “I’ll be quiet.” And he _is_ , all the way through an entire packet of Wordsworth. Jeez, if I’d known putting a big shiny superhero blockbuster in front of him would shut him up, I’d have done it ages ago. Even after the movie has ended—or he just loses interest; I’m not sure which—and he moves on to clicking around elsewhere on the Internet, the computer seems to have him absorbed enough to leave me to my studies. I actually make it right up to the last of our English readings without interruption.

Halfway through T. S. Elliot’s ‘The Hollow Men,’ I look up to check on the god and blink to find that I have been gazing at him for some time, my cheek resting lazily on my palm, the poem forgotten in front of me. That light that came into his eyes when he talked about the development of human communication is there again—quieter, but every bit as alive—as he clicks, and scrolls, and taps his way through his newfound playground. I can’t see what’s on the screen from this angle, but whatever it is, it has him so entranced that he hasn’t once paused to notice me staring. I wonder for a moment what it could be, but then decide that it doesn’t matter; it’s his face that has me mesmerized… the subtle smile on his lips, the intent flick of his eyes, the way he strains subtly forward and… and… I shake myself. _Studying._ I have studying to finish. What the hell am I doing staring at the god like a moron. I don’t even like him—or—whatever—why am I even thinking about this? I fix my eyes firmly back on the paper in front of me, reminding my stupid self that the God of Mischief and his big bright eyes will still be there after I’m finished with T. S. Elliot.

 

_III_

_This is the dead land_

_This is cactus land_

_Here the stone images_

_Are raised, here they receive_

_The supplication of a dead man’s hand_

_Under the twinkle of a fading star._

_Is it like this_

_In death’s other kingdom_

_Walking alone_

_At the hour when we are_

_Trembling with tenderness_

_Lips that would kiss_

_Form prayers to broken stone._

_IV_

_The eyes are not here_

_There are no eyes here_

_In this valley of dying stars_

_In this hollow valley_

_This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms_

_In this last of meeting places_

_We grope together_

_And avoid speech_

_Gathered on this beach of the tumid river_

_Sightless, unless_

_The eyes reappear_

_As the perpetual star_

_Multifoliate rose_

_Of death’s twilight kingdom_

_The hope only_

_Of empty men._

 

“You’re beautiful when you’re concentrating,” Trouble says. “You know that?”

I look up surprised. “What?”

“No.” He turns back to the computer, smiling. “I don’t suppose you do.”

“I—what… what…?” But I’m so taken aback I don’t even know what question I’m trying to ask. “Wh-what did you just say?” I settle on finally.

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” he mutters, not taking his eyes from the screen.

“How’s the Internet?” I ask.

“It’s… wonderful.” A genuine smile spreads across his face. “Humanity is wonderful. I can’t bear the thought—” he stops short as though realizing how earnest—how pained—his voice just became. He fidgets for a moment, his hand flexing on the desk before him and then tries again “I…” his voice is more even now, though that may be just because it has gotten quieter. “I don’t want to see all this erased.”

“Trouble…” Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve reached out to touch that hand. I pause just short of contact with his skin, realizing what I just started to do and wondering… why? Should I? Does he want my comfort? Or… for a heartbeat, my hand hovers there awkwardly. Then the God of Mischief does a strange thing; he moves his hand forward a fraction of an inch like he means to return the touch, but then abruptly pulls it away, as though withdrawing from danger.

“Um…” I draw my own hand back, curling my fingers up awkwardly. “A-are you okay?”

“Yes.” He seems almost flustered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You…” I begin. “What…?” But I’m not even sure what I want to ask. Why were you away from the gods and humanity so long? What happened to you? Who was the last person who showed you affection?... What happened to you?

“It must be lonely,” I say. I’m not even sure where it came from, it just came out of my mouth. “Is it lonely… being the only god left?”

For a moment, I think I see a confused flicker of different emotions across Trouble’s face, but in an instant, he has settled on a grinning chuckle. “Lonely?” He says as though the concept is quite new to him. “Well, I suppose so… in that I am alone. But then, that has always been the case. Even when this world teemed with free deities, I could never find true companionship with any being. I am too creative a force to be a proper demon, yet I am too destructive for the gods to ever accept me as one of their own… The gods are a family, as are the demons in their twisted, dysfunctional way. But I am a bastard child of both houses… the offspring of malice and compassion, able to move anywhere and fit nowhere.”

“That _must_ bother you,” I say. I’ve been thinking it ever since we had that unsettling conversation about his shape-shifting… “To never be totally accepted by anyone.”

“Why would it?” He looks up at me sharply. “Because it bothers you?”

“I…”

“It’s what I am. And if I love nothing, I love myself; I’m sure you’ve noticed that much.”

“Yes, but—y-you don’t—you never wanted to be close to anyone?” How could someone live like that? … for _one_ lifetime, let alone a hundred?

“I prize my freedom much too much to tether myself to someone else’s desires or expectations, as why should I? As someone who _belongs_ nowhere, I can go where I please, think, do, and say what I please… I enjoy mobility and clarity no other being can boast.”

“And you never feel alone?”

“Of course I do. It’s _loneliness_ I don’t feel. Loneliness is a chain—as is any emotion that drives people into the arms of those who might control or exploit them. To be alone is to be free… and I love my freedom.”

“So loneliness doesn’t bother you,” I say. “What does?”

“Boredom, monotony… silence.”

“Well… you can’t really fix any of those things without being around people, can you?”

“Being with others doesn’t make one less alone,” Trouble says. “Just less bored. And that’s enough.”

I nod slowly. “Okay… well… I’m going to study now, so I’m going to need a little more silence. I’m almost done,” I promise. “Just fifteen more minutes or so, but until then, no more talking, okay?”

“Yes, yes, no more talking,” he agrees with a sigh.

 

_I_

_We are the hollow men_

_We are the stuffed men_

_Leaning together_

_Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!_

_Our dried voices, when_

_We whisper together_

_Are quiet and meaningless_

_As wind in dry grass_

_Or rats’ feet over broken glass_

_In our dry cellar_

_Shape without form, shade without colour,_

_Paralysed force, gesture without motion;_

_Those who have crossed_

_With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom_

_Remember us—if at all—not as lost_

_Violent souls, but only_

_As the hollow men_

_The stuffed men…_

 

“Trouble?” I say suddenly.

He raises his eyebrows at me. “I thought I wasn’t to talk to you.”

“What’s going to happen to language, and technology, and art if Fate wins?”

“Well, Chavez,” he says, “Where do those things come from?”

“I-I don’t know… from the gods of language and—”

“From this.” He raises his hand and I feel the tip of his finger jab into my chest. “From you. The gods of all arts and innovation only exist because those things exist in _you_. Fate is a perfectionist, very good at operating by the numbers. The irrationality and unpredictability of emotion has only ever served to make Fate’s job more difficult. If I know him, he will try to lock down the more sporadic, emotional deities, still their activities, leaving humanity with only gods of inventory, statistics, and rationality, allowing him to create the kind of clear-cut, utterly bland, utterly pointless world he’s always dreamed of.” The idea seems to send a crawling shudder through the God of Mischief. “With him pulling all the strings as he intends—as he _will_ if he succeeds in eliminating me—I can’t imagine the creative gods under his control will last very long before withering away to nothing.”

“Okay but… without those gods… what will we even be anymore?”

“Not humans. Not _you_. Just empty dolls with your faces. I can’t imagine it will hurt much when he disposes of you,” he shrugs. “I can’t imagine it will feel like much of anything at all…” a muscle between his eyebrows twitches. “Humanity deserves a better end than that.”

“Better how?”                                                                                    

“Oh, I don’t know…” He tilts his head to the side with a wistful smile. “Something fiery. Something _memorable_.”

“Really. So if you got to stage the apocalypse your way…”

“At the very least I would try to cook up something worthy of your species, in all its beauty and brutality.”

“Meaning… what exactly?” I’m not even sure why I’m asking about this. To test if he’s the evil sort of deity I’m afraid he might be…? He’s given me plenty of Satan-red flags in that department… so why am I even asking?

“You want me to describe it to you?” He raises his eyebrows.

“… yes.”

He leans in on his elbows as though preparing to tell a particularly juicy secret. “If I had my way…” he says in an almost sensual whisper, “I would end your story with an explosion to rival the one that began it. I would have you die scrabbling. Your throats raw and your eyes wide open. Your bodies contorted in throes of rapture and agony. I would have you die defiant, die _furious_ …” he purrs, “looting, and raping, and tearing at each other’s flesh in a mad scramble for one last shred of definition.”

My eyes _are_ wide open as his teeth glint into a grin. I should back away, should run from the room, but something in the indulgent roll of his voice has me leaning in as he continues… “I would have you die weeping. Bathed in blood. Trembling with the thunder of falling monuments and cracking hearts. I would have you _scream_.”

The breath has stopped in my lungs. He couldn’t have answered that question any more like the Devil himself… and here I am… drowning in the blackness of his gaze like an idiot.

“Sounds terrifying, doesn’t it?”

“Y-you…” It takes me a moment to find my voice. “You say that like you’re pleased with yourself,” I say, feeling my face twisted in something between fear and disgust.

“At least terror has a flavor. Terror keeps you awake enough to remember who you are.”

“I-is… is it… Is remembering really worth that?”

“Depends,” Trouble says with a one-shouldered shrug.

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re something worth remembering.”

“And if you’re not?”

“Then you can just lie back…” He rolls a finger aimlessly back and forth on the trackpad. “Fate will drain your life slowly, and by the time your humanity leaves you for good, you won’t even be awake enough to care that it’s gone.”

I press a corner of my review sheet between my fingers and look down. For some inexplicable reason, I suddenly wish he had let me touch his hand.

 

 

_V_

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o-clock in the morning.

_Between the idea_

_And the reality_

_Between the motion_

_And the act_

_Falls the Shadow_

For Thine is the Kingdom

_Between the conception_

_And the creation_

_Between the emotion_

_And the response_

_Falls the Shadow_

Life is very long

_Between the desire_

_And the spasm_

_Between the potency_

_And the existence_

_Between the essence_

_And the descent_

_Falls the Shadow_

For Thine is the Kingdom

_For Thine is_

_Life is_

_For Thine is the_

 

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper _._

 

 

“Trouble,” I say quietly.

“Mmm?” He glances up from the laptop.

“I want to go to that dance with you.”

“Why, Chavez,” he smiles sweetly. “You’re finally falling for me.”

I look into my lap to avoid that mocking smirk. “I just want to wear my stupid dress once.” I nod at the slinky green garment still hanging on my closet door. “And anyway, you said you liked dancing.”

“I do,” Trouble says. “And I’ll admit it’s been a while…”

“So you _will_ go with me?” I ask, trying not to sound as anxious as I feel.

“Can I wear what I want?”

“I—sure… of course.”

“Then it’s a date.”

“Good.” I nod, still not meeting his eyes. “… Thanks.”

“Don’t go getting all sentimental on me, now.”

I thought I would feel more nervous—more excited? More mortified?—than this at asking the Devil for a dance. But I don’t… I don’t feel more of anything… and it _bothers_ me.

“Turn around,” I say quietly. “I’m going to change.”

“Going to bed?” He says, sounding vaguely disappointed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting this back then?” He holds the laptop out to me.

“No. You keep it. I have to actually be awake tomorrow for exams. I shouldn’t spend half the night on fanfiction.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, seemingly torn between his desire to keep playing with the laptop and his inexplicable obsession with getting me to write more fanfiction.

“Yeah. Knock yourself out.”

 

I get into bed, but I can’t sleep. And not just because of the light from the screen shimmering off the dress and the sound of Trouble’s fingers skittering across the keys. I can usually sleep through light and noise; this is something else…

I feel more scared than I did before. Not heart-pounding, hyperventilating scared like when Trouble first changed in front of me or the Primordial came to my window. No, this is a still kind of scared… a dread so cold it could almost be grief. I can’t see what’s on the screen from this angle, but its light is just bright enough that I can catch the movement of Trouble’s eyes as they dart hungrily back and forth. So sharp. So alive. And in spite of myself, I can’t help but think… _I don’t want that light to go out._

 


	13. Nothing but Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there are almost certainly a ton of errors in this chapter. I haven't had a lot of time lately so I had to slap it together really quickly. You have been warned.
> 
> Announcement time:  
> Following this chapter, I am putting this work on a one-month hiatus (until February 6th). As a reader, I know how annoying this is and you have my sincerest apologies, but I am working on another project that really needs my full attention this coming month. Updates will go back to normal in February. Thank you all for your support and patience!
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _It is very important that I am both cute and powerful_.”  
—seifukucat.tumblr.com

 

“Oh god…” I sigh through my teeth, tilting my head at my reflection in the full-length mirror. My stomach isn’t sticking out quite like I was afraid it would, but I’m still far from the right shape for the sleek green dress. I lift my head up and draw my shoulders back to see if it helps, but it doesn’t really. I’m too short. Too stubby. Too freckly. All the skin the dress exposes just makes it all worse.

Thankfully, the familiar rap of a beak against glass pulls my attention from the unshapely girl in the mirror. In a moment, I have crossed the room and pulled open the window. Trouble sweeps in in a rush of black feathers and freezing night air and I close it quickly behind him.

“Oh _my_ ,” he drawls, unfurling into his human form before me. “Look at _you_.” He quirks an eyebrow and lets out a low whistle and suddenly I feel like he’s standing too close.

“Yeah, how about we don’t,” I scowl, crossing my awful, chunky little arms over myself and shuffling away. “How about you just tell me how your scouting went.”

“Scouting was lovely. Beautiful night.” And that’s when I notice the heaviness of his breathing. At first I thought it was just the gravelly rasp his voice usually assumes for the first few words after he adjusts his form, but no; he’s definitely winded. “Not a threat in sight for ten miles around.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, turning back to look at him. His hair and coat look vaguely ruffled. “You seem… out of breath.”

“Do I? I suppose I might have gotten a little carried away with the flips and dives on that last stretch. As I said, it’s a beautiful night for flying. Crisp, full of stars, just the right amount of wind—”

“And no gods, or demons, or anything?” I ask. A few days ago he had seemed so uneasy with the idea of me going out at night. That was the whole reason he had flown this extra round to double check for danger.

“Not anywhere near this town,” he smiles. “We are free to go to your little dance in peace.”

“Seriously? I… I thought they were getting warmer.” At least that was what Trouble had told me the last few times he’d been out scouting. That was why he had had to take all that effort to get my family out of town. “I thought they were within a couple miles of finding us.”

“As did I,” he shrugs. “I suppose my attempts to throw them off the scent paid off—at least for now. Tonight should be perfectly safe.”

“Okay…” If he’s not worried, I guess I shouldn’t be either. I plop down at my desk and try for the fifth time that night to twist my uncooperative hair into a high bun.

“That hair of yours gives you a great deal of grief, doesn’t it?”

“Always,” I sigh, letting the whole mess fall down in defeat. I’ve never been good at doing my hair. That one long braid; that’s pretty much all I know how to do with it.

“Why don’t you just cut it?”

“I’ve always had my hair long,” I say, scooping it around to the side to try again. “Since I was a little kid. This is the way I like it best.”

“How would you know that if you’ve never had it any other way?”

“I don’t—why are we talking about my hair?” I demand irritably.

“I don’t know,” Trouble shrugs. “It’s just that whenever something weighs me down, I cut it off.”

After struggling with my hair for a good twenty minutes, I finally give up and put it back in its regular braid. At least that way it won’t look any stupider than it usually does. When my makeup is all done, I stand up and take another look at myself in the mirror. I’m tidier than I was, but other than that the view isn’t much improved. Even with my feet strapped into some very uncomfortable heels, my legs still appear stubby and no amount of makeup can cover up my general awkwardness. I should never have let Gabby talk me into this dress.

“So fucking short,” I mutter, trying to pull the front of it down over my pale, unsightly thighs. “I’m going to put on shorts under it,” I decide and start digging through my clothes for that one pair of shorts I always wear under things.

“You wear skirts that are shorter than that dress,” Trouble points out.

“Yeah but those are girl skirts,” I say, coming up with the shorts and stepping behind the closet door to pull them on.

 “As opposed to… _boy skirts._ ”

“No I mean—this isn’t a girly dress; it’s a… _womanly_ dress. I don’t have the body for it.” I immediately feel myself go red after the words have even left my mouth. “Anyway, why am I even talking to you about this? Go back to your… _whatever_ you were doing,” gesturing vaguely at the book in his hands.

“Jocelyn…” Trouble says, his voice hanging in that horrible place where I have no idea if it’s sincere or mocking. “You don’t look as bad as you think you do.”

I try a weak smile, but when I turn back to the mirror, the pale, chunky thing I see there is still pretty demoralizing… “Maybe I just won’t go.”

“You what now?” He demands, sounding genuinely annoyed for the first time. “Jocelyn, you look _fine_.”

“No, I really don’t and it might not be safe. It’s not worth it.”

“It’s safe,” Trouble says in exasperation. “Look, I’ll do one more fly-around if it makes you feel better. You can finish with your makeup or whatever and pick me up on your way there.”

“Okay… wh-where do you want me to pick you up?”

“Um…” Trouble things for a moment. “I’m terrible with the street names in this town, but… you know that intersection with the crosswalk where you cross to go to school?”

“You mean the one where I was assaulted?” I say dryly.

“Yeah. Stop off there and I’ll meet up with you.”

“Awesome.”

 

I’m not overly surprised when I roll up to the corner of Maple Grove and Spruce and don’t see anyone there. It isn’t exactly like Trouble to be where he’s supposed to be when he’s supposed to be… or to pass up an opportunity to mess with me while I’m so gut-clenchingly nervous. I can see him blowing me off just to see what I’ll do… or maybe he just got distracted by something on patrol… or maybe he actually is here and I just can’t see him. So, I inch forward slowly, searching in the shadows at the periphery of my headlights for the shape of a man, a cat… anything that could be him. But the corner is still and deserted. I’m just about to slump back in my seat with an exasperated sigh when I catch a hint of movement. I lean forward to see a dark someone step out of the shadows… but it isn’t Trouble.

It’s a girl.

The headlights hit the lower half of her first, outlining a pair of shapely mocha legs and glinting off her black and silver platform boots. As I pull closer, the headlights fall on the rest of her… a short black dress, fingerless fishnet gloves… A startled jolt of fear shoots through me when I catch sight of her face… because the last time I saw it, is was dripping with Trouble’s blood.

“ _Lucy_?”

Pulling to the curb, I put the car in park and get out. “Lucy… what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” She blinks innocently. “You told me to come.”

“What… when did I—”

“When you told me you would go to the dance with me.”

“What—no, I didn’t. I—I never said that.”

“Sure, you did.” Smiling, she twirls the lollipop over in her fingers and it turns into a rose. “Three days ago, in your room.”

I stare down at the rose as my mind takes a moment to catch up with my eyes. “ _Trouble?_ ”

“And the slowest horse crosses the line.” Lucy claps her hands. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would take you _this_ long to figure it out.”

“You’re… then… where’s Lucy?”

“I _am_ Lucy.”

“But you’re not you’re… Wait… you mean… oh my god.” I have to lean against the car. “Oh my god… there was never any Lucy at all.” It all made sense now. Her racial ambiguity, her speed, her sociopathic tendencies… Lucy was Trouble all along. “Fuck…” I say, blinking at her in her clinging inky black dress, her feathery pigtails, her sharp laughing eyes. “Fuck you _look like_ him!” I mean—not so much in the exact shape of their features. Lucy is decidedly more rounded and feminine, with that heart-shaped face, almond-shaped eyes, and faintly upturned little nose, but that _smirk_. The smirk is the same. “How did I not _notice_?”

“I dunno, chica,” the dark deity says, leaning lazily against the chain link fence to inspect her—his?—black-polished fingernails. “I think you had it in your head that I was somehow innately male, having only met me as a male cat and a male human, so it just didn’t occur to you. Humans can be weirdly rigid in their perceptions of gender.”

“But… _why_?” I say helplessly. Why would the God of Mischief try to get to know me in the form of a shrimpy high school girl when he was already living in my room?

“Well, I had to come up with some way to keep an eye on you at school. And I had never been inside a modern high school. I was curious.”

I can only shake my head. “We’re done. I’m going home.” I turn to get back in the car. She’s in front of me in a shadowy rush of wind, barring my way.

“You’re angry with me,” she says apologetically.

“Angry? I’m—I’m _furious_! You—you were just going to fuck about with my insecurity about my sexuality—my _religion_?”

“Well… yes.”

“So this is all just a game to you?” I say, feeling tears well up hot in my eyes. “My life is a toy?”

“If you can play with it, it’s a toy.”

In a surge of rage, I lift my arm. For a terrifying moment, I think I might be about to punch the deity right in those pretty little lips, but I don’t quite have it in me and end up just shoving her. Her bare back hits the car door with a painful-sounding thud.

“Change back,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Why?”

“So I can punch you in the face.”

“Not going to hit a lady,” she laughs. “Chivalry isn’t dead.”

“Change _back_ ,” I say more forcefully.

“Excuse me,” she says, her voice dripping with sass. “You said I could wear what I wanted.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean—you _know_ I didn’t mean _human skin._ ”

She blinks up at me for a moment. “Why does it make such a difference? I’m still the same hedonistic, sociopathic Trouble. Why should a pair of breasts or pigtails change the way you treat me?”

“Shut up. I know what you’re trying to do.” She—he’s—trying to do that thing he always does, where he twists around his own shittiness to make me look like the stupid, narrow-minded bigot, but I don’t have to take that. Not right now. Not when he’s been lying to me, driving me into a frenzy of confliction, and tears, and weird nightmares for _months_ just because he _can_.

“Tell me, what is it about me—about this Lucy—that makes her so unacceptable to you? Is just that she’s a girl with broad sexual tastes? Or is it her taste in clothes? Does it bother you that she proudly dresses like the self-indulgent Mary Sues of the stories you’re ashamed to admit you loved as a young girl?”

“Stop it.”

“Or is it that she’s from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’? That she don’t _talk proper_? She don’t use them fancy words you gringos like to throw around? Is it that she’s the epitome of all the things you’re terrified of being stereotyped into?”

I stand there for a moment, my fists clenched at my sides, hating that I have to fight tears. Hating the lump of mortification hardening in my throat. “I’m going home.”

I move to open the car door, but Lucy—Trouble—stops me again.

“No—wait!” Her voice is smaller, more desperate now, as she grasps my arms in warm, wiry hands. “Wait! You can’t just _go home_.”

“Oh yes, I can.” I’ve had enough of this night.

“Look—I’m sorry,” the god says with an earnestness I would believe in an instant if I didn’t know better. “I’m sorry.”

I’m still fuming, but I pull up short because I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Trouble—or Lucy for that matter—apologize for anything…

“I admit it,” she continues, “I tailored Lucy to target all your insecurities. Understand, I just wanted to see what you were made of.”

“And what am I made of?” I ask icily.

“The same flaws as any human,” the god says simply. “The same contradictions, the same hypocrisy. No human on this Earth has ever fared any better when I’ve set about exposing their flaws. You have no reason for shame.” Yeah… coming from Trouble, that doesn’t mean a whole lot. “But I am sorry I caused you grief. Just please… let’s go to the dance.”

“What is it with you and this fucking dance?” I demand. “Why is it so important to you?”

“Do you know how hard it is to do _anything fun_ without catching Fate’s attention? I haven’t gotten to go to a dance—or any social event of any kind—for literally _ages_. It’s killing me. It seems I have a little time before Fate finds me and I intend to enjoy it.”

“Then go by yourself. You have your fake ID.”

“I would rather go with a beautiful girl.”

“So, go steal someone’s girlfriend,” I say, refusing to give in to those eyes, and that sweet, falsely sincere voice. “You like doing that, right? Try Martha. She dated Luis so we know she likes assholes.”

“Ouch. Alright. Nicely done. But I _want_ to go with _you,_ Jocelyn… _please_?” This form has big, adorable pleading eyes and the God of Mischief fucking knows it. “Please? As a we-might-both-die present?”

“Fine,” I growl. “But only if you change back into a guy.”

The deity bites her lip for a moment as though contemplating objecting. But finally, with a sigh, she spins around, feathers of smoke and shadow swirl around her and when she comes back around, she’s a he, with his messy hair and black coat.

“Better?”

“Yes,” I say shortly. “But I’m still mad at you.”

“I’ll take it. Let’s go.”

Every year, my school holds all its dances in the same spacious, fancy hotel several miles away. People complain about it getting old, but this will be my first time there. In a few minutes, we pull up into a parking lot already filled with cars, and giggles, and boys in their suits, and girls in their shimmering dresses.

It’s not actually that far to the doors, but I forget how long a pair of strappy heels can make even the shortest walk. By the time we make it inside, I’m thankful the cold has numbed my feet past feeling. Okay, so these shoes were a _terrible_ idea. But without them, I’m just embarrassingly short.

“Are you alright?” Trouble asks as I wobble for a moment and then lean against the wall.

“Yep.” I grit my teeth and push myself upright again despite the blisters I can feel already squashing themselves into my toes. “I’m great.”

Hollywood has lots of things it would have me believe about the average high school dance; that everything about it is magical, and beautifully lit, and full of sparkles. I always had a suspicion that this was not the truth, but until now, movies have been my only reference for this supposed staple of teenage existence. It’s darker inside than I expected… and _louder._ I look around at the crowds of people, some sort of dancing, but mostly awkwardly standing in their clumped little social groups and wonder why I ever thought coming to this thing would be fun.

I see the girls from my English class by the food table with their boyfriends, laughing, and move abruptly away from them. I don’t need slender Martha and curvy, gorgeous Carla in their beautiful dresses to see how crappy _I_ look when I try to dress up.

“We should dance,” Trouble says, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a little kid as I back up against one of the walls behind some balloon decorations.

“No, no way.”

“So, you wanted to come to a dance to wear bad shoes and plaster yourself to a wall? How does that make any sense?”

“I can’t dance.”

“Everyone can dance.”

“I’m going to go find the bathroom,” I say, feeling like my head is going to explode if I stand there for another moment longer.

“I’ll be here,” Trouble sighs.

I get a bit… extremely turned around in the halls outside the main room after coming out of the bathroom. I find my way back in, but this time it’s through a side entrance instead of the main one. This one opens right onto the dance floor and I find myself awkwardly edging my way in between dancing couples trying to get back to the corner where I was standing. It’s a slower, more methodical song playing now, not quite as pounding and energetic as the others. I suppose if I were to dance to something, it would be something like this, but I honestly just want to get out of this tangle of bodies. I don’t see Trouble when I try to get a look past all the dancing couples, but he said he’d wait for me there… I’m halfway across the dance floor when a hand grasps my shoulder.

“Found you,” a voice says, just audible over the music, as I’m pulled into a strong embrace.

“Trouble! What are you doing?”

“We’re dancing.”

“I told you, I can’t dance.

Trouble raises his eyebrows as I look up into his smirking face. “Then I’ll just have to teach you. I’m quite a good dancer.”

“We need to get to the far doors,” he says. “ _Inconspicuously_.”

“Wait—why are we doing that?” I demand, putting my hands on his shoulders to push him out to an arm’s length. “What’s going on?”

“Well…” He tilts his head with an apologetic wince. “You know when I told you the coast was clear for ten miles around? ...I lied.”

“ _WHAT_?” I shout over the music. “ _Why_?”

“No time to explain now. We have company.” He turns me around and holds me so I’m facing the main door. There are two men standing there, one of them a hulking man in a red wife-beater, the other a long, gaunt figure in a ragged leather coat. They stick out immediately simply by virtue of their sheer size; the shorter of the two—the thin one—stands a good foot higher than anyone around them and the taller… the taller is the biggest man I’ve ever seen.

“Whoa… friends of yours?”

“Worse,” Trouble says grimly. “Family. They followed me here.”

“What are—” But before I can finish he spins me around again and holds me by the shoulders, looking into my face. “They haven’t seen us yet, but it won’t take them long to track us down if we stay.”

“So, what do we do?” I demand, feeling hot panic rise inside me. “What do we—”

“Keep calm,” he says. “And dance with me.”

“What?”

“It’s the best way to blend in while we move toward the door without drawing too much attention.”

“But-but I can’t—”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll lead. Follow me and you’ll find your feet.”

And suddenly we’re sliding through the crowd, still spinning.

“Where are we going to go?” I ask breathlessly, stumbling as I try to keep up with the god’s wild, fluid movements.

“Somewhere,” he says, pulling me around the side of the stage, out of sight of our ‘company.’ “Fuck me, are you always this clumsy?”

“I’m in _heels_!” I hiss.

“Right.” He looks down at my feet. “Excellent choice of footwear.” And he pulls me out into the hall, through the lobby, and out into the biting night air. “Here.” He shoves a black jacket into my hands as we duck behind a hedge. “Put this on.”

“I—where did this—did you just _steal_ this?” I ask, looking down at the unfamiliar coat.

“Yes,” he says. “And these.” He lets a pair of fuzzy black boots flop to the ground in front of me. “Now put that on while I get these things off of you.” He drops to his knees and attacks the multiple buckles on my heels with lightning fingers. “We need to move fast.”

In the few moments it takes me to pull the jacket on over my bare shoulders, he’s already pulled off one of my shoes and started in on the other. The pavement is icy under my bare foot, but after the searing blisters from the shoes, it’s rather pleasant… or at least it would be if I wasn’t half choked with panic.

“D-do you think they saw us leave?”

“No.” He frees my other foot and snatches up one of the boots. “But our pursuers aren’t hunting by sight.”

“Who—or-or _what_ —are they?”

“Demons,” Trouble says, holding out a boot for me to step into. “Powerful ones. The ratty, emaciated one is my darling brother, the Demon of Hunger. Stronger than I am, and more vicious, but I know how to handle him. The hulking slab of beef with him is Wrath, and…” Trouble chuckles grimly, tugging on the second boot. “Suffice it to say that if we face _him_ head on, the only thing left of us will be a bloody smear on some snow bank.”

“ _Bloody smear_?” I say weakly.

“Yes.” Trouble straightens up, grinning tensely. “So, when I said we need to move quickly—”

The front doors of the hotel explode in a shower of broken glass and a crouched figure comes skidding out among the pieces on all fours. It’s the skeletal one in the ragged coat… _Hunger_. He’s still shaped like a man, but he moves like an animal as he sniffs the air and he reels around to face our hiding place. For a breathless moment, I think—I hope—he might not have seen us. Then he springs.

“ _Down_!” Trouble shoves me out of the way with one hand while a knife appears in the other. But he isn’t quite fast enough. That single wolf-like bound brings the Hunger through the bushes right down on top of him. I can only scream and scramble backwards as the demon pins him to the ground.

With a swipe of a broad clawed hand, Hunger knocks Trouble’s weapon away. The demon’s mouth roars open wider, and then wider, and impossibly wider until it is big enough to take a human child at a single gulp. Trouble throws out one of his hands and gropes for a moment before it closes on one of my silver heels. Hunger lunges down, jaws agape as though to tear Trouble’s head right off his shoulders, just as the God of Mischief jams the shoe upward. The pointed little heel sticks in the roof of the demon’s mouth and he rears back, screaming, clawing at his mouth in agony.

I don’t have a chance to see if he manages to dislodge it or not because Trouble is already around me, hauling me to my feet.

“Time to run, Chavez.”

“We can’t outrun _that_!” I say as I trip and stumble after him. Even without the heels slowing me down, keeping pace with him is a struggle.

“Well, _you_ certainly can’t. I guess it’s a good thing you wore shorts under that dress after all.”

“What—?” The question cuts off in a sharp gasp as the god loops an arm around my waist and then just… _throws_ me. Like a sack of potatoes. I’m sure at some point in my life a very long time ago, I was small enough to be casually thrown into the air, but I don’t remember it now. And back then I certainly didn’t know the fear of collision with the ground. Through the shock of the frigid air whistling around my seemingly weightless body and the reeling terror of the concrete suddenly so far below, I am only vaguely aware of the God of Mischief’s dark form unfurling into something else beneath me.

I feel myself plummeting, the sidewalk surging up to smash me to pieces, and I squeeze my eyes shut. But it’s not cement that slams into me; it’s a warm mass of pitching, rippling muscle. As I open my eyes and struggle upright with the uneven billowing movement beneath me, my hands tangle in a mane of coarse hair, and I feel the clatter of hooves against concrete.

“Horse…” I say dumbly as I take in the lithe black creature galloping down the street under my weight. “You… you’re a _horse_.”

“Astute, as always.” His voice is doing that weird echoey thing where it seems to sound inside my head rather than issuing from his mouth. “This is my only form that can move fast enough while supporting you. Flying would be ideal, but… best not to try that right now.”

I’ve ridden horses a couple of times before—at the summer camps I didn’t actually want to go to—but never without a saddle and never this _fast_. Sure, I’ve hit a canter before, but this is a full on gallop… maybe more than that. With every new lurch, I feel sure I’m going to slide off.

“Trouble!” I gasp in panic, clutching his mane. “I’m going to fall! I’m going to fall!”

“No, you’re not,” he says, unbelievably calm for a guy—okay, a _horse_ —running for his life from a couple of demons twice his size. “Hold on and you will be fine.”

“No, I-I can’t— You have to slow down!”

“You want to take a look over your shoulder and say that again?” Trouble says lightly.

Hunger is bounding after us. He seems to have gotten even bigger now. He’s closer to the size of a bear now than a man, his limbs lengthening grotesquely, his mouth snarling and full of teeth. And rising behind him… Jesus Christ, what the hell _is_ that? A teeming mass of flame-like redness is billowing up behind him, spreading to eat up half the sky. It’s furious and formless like a thundercloud, but I can still see a face in it… a human face, twisted with animalistic rage. Wrath.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!” I gulp, dangerously close to hyperventilation. “This… this is happening…”

“Now, let’s go faster, shall we?”

My braid, heavy as it is, is whipping out behind me so hard it almost hurts as it pulls at my scalp. The wind was cold before, but it’s become a searing blast as Trouble’s hooves carry us faster, and faster past a quick flash of hedges, past a whole block of restaurants within a few moments, through and empty intersection, and out into an open white field. The snow here must be at least shin-deep, but it doesn’t slow Trouble down. If anything, he presses on faster, cutting through the freezing whiteness like a blade.

“Oh, God!” I cry out, clinging harder to Trouble’s mane. “Fucking Arwen made this shit look so easy!”

“So will we.” That’s when I see the glow of a highway ahead. I don’t know which one it is, I’ve gotten so disoriented, but it’s a big one, still filled with cars even at this time of night. My heart sinks when I realize that the strip of traffic all but cuts off our retreat. We can’t cross it. We _can’t_ … not with so many cars, all going so fast… yet Trouble doesn’t slow down or change course.

“Trouble, what are you doing?” I scream as he goes barreling right toward the six-lane highway. “ _Trouble_!” But we have already burst out of the snow, into the whoosh of engines and the blare of horns.

I let out a scream that gets swallowed up in the roar of traffic and I’m certain that mad flash of headlights is going to be the last thing I ever see, but Trouble _dances_ , his hooves light and quick as his cat feet on the asphalt. Twisting like no ordinary horse can, he dodges out of the way of the first car—and the next one, and the next one—probably before the drivers even get a chance to register the dark shape flashing before them. In an impossible lurch, we’re on the hood of a car, then springing off, over a white semi, out into the darkened cornfield on the other side. And somehow— _miraculously—_ I’ve managed to hang on through it all.

“Oh my god!” I look back over my shoulder just in time to see the semi _explode_ in a burst of red flame. The boom shakes the ground and seems to echo with an almost human scream.

“Impressive isn’t it?” Trouble says casually. “Wrath’s power. Fortunately for us, his aim leaves a bit more to be desired.”

“B-b-but… but…” I can’t stop looking back at the highway, even as it grows smaller, and the strain starts to hurt my neck. Someone was _in_ that truck. Someone is _dead_ back there… because of us.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Trouble’s voice says in my head. “Only stay alive.”

“H-how… how?”

“I can outpace my brothers easily, even with you in tow, but Hunger will smell us out no matter where we hide, and Wrath probably won’t spend his rage until the night is over.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Outsmart them. What do you say we give dearest Wrath something to shoot at?”

A ripple Trouble’s magic shimmers alongside us and in an instant another horse grows out of it… with another _Jocelyn_ on its back. I know it’s not real. It’s just a magically-whipped-up decoy. But the pounding of its hooves against the ground, and the warm puff of breath radiating from it all seem so real, I’m inches from believing I could reach out and touch it. Fake Jocelyn turns, looking much easier and more confident than the real one ever does, and throws me a bizarrely Trouble-like wink before she and the illusory horse go speeding on ahead of us.

Ghost-like tendrils of Trouble’s magic unfurl in every direction and within moments, we are surrounded an army of horses and green-clad riders thundering like a dark avalanche through to cornfields.

“Wow… good trick,” I say breathlessly, looking around at the dozens of horses all breaking off for different parts of the field.

“Only as far as Wrath is concerned. Hunger can still smell us.”

A flash of red and another explosion of that terrible roaring sound tells me that Wrath has taken a shot at one of the illusions. The next attack hits a decoy not too far in front of us with a thunderous crack that seems to shake the air. The horse and rider explode into a storm of crows, which swirl, squawking, into the sky. A moment later, we race over the spot where the attack landed, dipping into the crackling, house-sized crater it left in the ground, and then leaping out into the blasted space around it. As I look back at the blackened ground, a horrible, morbid little part of me thinks that at least whoever was on that highway must have died quickly.

My thoughts are so stuck on the image of that exploding truck still burned into my mind and the terrible feeling of Wrath looming closer behind us, that I don’t even notice the terrain change until a low-hanging branch literally smacks me in the face. Trees… We are in some kind of wooded area now. The darkness cast by the tangle of branches overhead is so intense that I can barely make out the tree trunks surrounding us, but the distinctive scent of fresh pine fills my nose and I can hear the snap and crunch of undergrowth beneath Trouble’s hooves as he weaves his way through the forest.

“Cover,” Trouble explains. “Wrath can’t hit what he can’t see.”

But he must not be too convinced that Wrath won’t find us in here because he hasn’t let up with the illusions. I catch the hoof beats of two other horses nearby. Dark birds of all sizes, some no bigger than hedge sparrows, some with wingspans as wide as I am tall, take flight all around us. Rabbits, squirrels, and other tiny creatures bound off in every direction while I think I catch the slither and scuttle of scaled things in the leaf litter. A dozen cats identical to Muffin scurry off into the trees among hordes of howling coyotes and ambling gray raccoons. Here among the trees, Trouble seems to have pulled out all his forms to distract Wrath.

Even with all these trees to dodge around, Trouble doesn’t slow for a second. I don’t know how much longer we keep going like that, plunging further, and further into the darkness between the trees, but it feels like hours. I press my tingling numb lips together as tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes to disappear in the wind behind me. The muscles in my hands and arms are screwed up in aching tension from holding on so long, and I can barely feel the rest of my body. Just as I think the rush of frozen air might start pull my skin right off, Trouble slows down. A few rolling paces and we come to a stop.

After the intensity of the wind, the sudden quiet rings uncomfortably in my ears. Trouble wheels around a few times, placing his hooves carefully in the snow-soaked leaf litter, his eyes wide open and his ears pricked. He seems to be listening for something, but the wood around us is utterly silent.

“Did we lose them?” I whisper.

“ _Quiet!_ ” Trouble’s voice snaps in my ears as his own flick and swivel, scanning our surroundings. “I’m trying to listen… _Fuck_.”

“What—” I begin, but Trouble rears back at that moment, dumping me off his back, onto the sodden ground.

The next thing I see is a monster—seemingly half-man, half-wolf, but the size of a grizzly bear— plunging down on top of the God of Mischief. In moments Trouble has twisted himself into little creature with fur and teeth of its own. A wolf? No. Too small… Coyote. He writhes free of Hunger’s jaws just before they can snap shut on him, leaps onto the bigger demon’s back and starts biting back, sinking snarling teeth into Hunger’s neck. The demon rears up on his hind legs with a maddened roar and I get my first good look at this massive, animal-like form of his. The brown that was his coat has bristled into unkempt hair all down his back and shoulders. His body is colorless except for the throbbing, bloodlike inside of his mouth. It’s as though his skeleton grew three sizes without the consent of his skin, which is now stretched, corpse-like over a protruding ribcage. More than horrific, he looks strained… desperate.

The demon turns around, making a hideous sound somewhere between a growl and a shriek, clawing wildly at his back. Like a shadow, Trouble slides in between the swiping claws and manages to jump off the demon’s back, out of harm’s way. The dark coyote tumbles over several times, unfolding with each turn until he is a man again, crouched and panting on the ground. It’s only then I see the damage he’s taken... a set of teeth marks rending their way up his back across onto his neck.

“ _Ahh,_ ” Trouble hisses, gingerly gripping his torn shoulder as his coyote canines shrink back down to human-sized ones. “It’s nice to see you too, my little wendigo. Fate’s been neglecting to feed you, I take it.”

Hunger whirls to face the God of Mischief, half-panting, half-growling through crocodilian teeth. One of his gaunt clawed hands clutches at an ear torn halfway off by Trouble’s teeth. At first glance, Hunger’s eyes seem dead and clouded. But behind the sheen, I glimpse a pair of sharp, viciously intelligent black eyes not unlike Trouble’s; they’re just… _dimmed_ , as though a sleep-like veil has been pulled over them.

“Come now, baby brother, you don’t _really_ want to eat me.” Trouble croons, his voice low and soothing even as a knife shimmers into the hand behind his back. “I’m all tough and stringy, remember? Half of me will just end up stuck in your teeth. And her? Alright, she might _look_ tasty, but she’s a _human_. There’s no telling where she’s been.”

“Hey—” I begin indignantly, but he elbows me in the chest nearly knocking the wind out of me.

“I know that Fate is in your head manipulating you, but you know you don’t need to kill us. We’re no more than a few mouthfuls and afterward, Fate will only lock you up again. I can see you haven’t eaten in a long time. You are _hungry_. But I can fix that, my sweet.” He reaches out cautiously to Hunger with his free hand. “I can make everything better. Shake that pesky control freak out of your head, and come with me. I’ll feed you. I’ll give you all you can consume and more.”

“Oh Liesmith…” A voice says then… The words are coming from Hunger’s great mouth, but somehow I can tell that the voice isn’t his. It’s cool and steady and not at all like the shrieking growls the demon was making before… “I’ll tell you the greatest strength of these deities under my control; they cannot hear your voice. With me in control, they are all as immune to your trickery as I am.” Fate… It’s Fate, speaking to us through Hunger’s mouth. “I only wish I could say the same of the misguided little human behind you. Come, child…” Hunger—or rather Fate—turns his silvery gaze on me and there is something comforting, almost familiar, in the cool straightforward sound of his voice. “You are a clever human. A _good_ human. You _know_ better than to trust a creature incapable of truth. If you come with me—”

“Whoa, alright, slow down there, asshat,” Trouble says. “Release your mental stranglehold on my brother—on all my siblings for that matter—and I’ll think about letting you near this human.”

“Really?” Fate says flatly. “You would exchange your human plaything for this abomination you call a brother?”

I think I see a muscle twitch in Trouble’s expression, but he quickly pulls it into a derisive sneer. “Better question: were I to ‘yes,’ would you believe me for a moment?”

“No. But I am beyond the necessity of playing your games. I will _take_ what I want from you.” Hunger starts forward, but in an instant, Trouble has his blade pressed into the hauntingly deep groove at the center of the demon’s clavicle.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he growls.

“Fortunately, Liesmith, I am not you.” Fate takes a step forward, pressing Hunger’s neck right into Trouble’s knife.

“What are you _doing_?” Trouble’s eyes widen in alarm as blood wells up around the blade and starts to trickle down Hunger’s emaciated torso. “You’re hurting him…”

“He is a demon.” Fate’s voice says coolly, apparently unaffected by the blade pushing itself into his puppet’s throat. “Just like you.” As Fate pushes Hunger further forward, Trouble takes a halting step back, looking more disturbed than I have ever seen him. “And I am not afraid to purge the world of its evils.”

“Alright, alright, Fate,” Trouble says. “Much as I _love_ your inane, self-righteous monologues, I’m afraid we must dash.” And he throws what looks like a cloud of black dust into Hunger’s face. Whatever it is, it’s laced with the distinctive shimmer of his magic, and it sends the demon reeling back, clawing at his eyes and nose. “Ta!”

Trouble takes my arm and, God, more running! I don’t know how much more physical exertion I can handle this night. It feels like my lungs might collapse under the repeated stabs of cold air, but Trouble keeps pulling me on faster.

“Come on, Chavez,” he says impatiently. “That spell will disorient the bastard, but only temporarily. We have to find a way to throw them off our scent. We have to find… _yes_!” He exclaims and changes direction slightly to pull me toward what sounds like… “Running water. I _thought_ I remembered a river around here,” he says as we come out of the trees onto the steep bank of a wide, deep stream.

The rushing slosh of water below us tells me that the current here is fast enough that the river has managed to stay in motion when most other bodies of water have frozen over.

“In we go then,” Trouble says.

“Wait.” I turn to look at him in disbelief. “What—”

But before I can finish, he gives me a short, sharp shove that sends me toppling right off the edge of the bank. The water hits me like a punch to the chest. All the breath leaves my body as the icy blackness closes over my head and, for a single terrifying moment, all that exists is the roar of the current consuming my body. I break the surface with a gaping, airless gasp that sticks needles into my pounding heart.

I am so stupefied with shock, that I barely even register the slippery form swimming up beneath me and carrying me downriver in fast rolling movements that match the current.

“Wh-wh-whu…” my trembling lips spout through the violent chattering of my teeth. “Wh-wh—” _Why are we doing this? What is happening? What are you? What the flying fuck is wrong with you?_ The small, unfrozen part of my brain wants to ask, but my mouth never gets past. “Wh-wh-whu…”

“Easy,” Trouble’s voice says in my head. “I’m not going to let you die.”

When he finally pulls me out of the water, onto a gently sloping stretch of bank, I can only lie there on my side in the mud, my body racked with tremors beyond my control. I can see my hands before me through frosted eyelashes, pale white and shining with coldness.

“Ahh, that’s right.” Trouble drops to a knee beside me. “I almost forgot how fragile you humans are.” He reaches out and puts his palm on my chest. Immediately, a ripple of heat rolls through me, melting through the cold, all the way down to my bones.

“Better?”

“ _Whoa._ ” Amazed at the feeling returning to my entire body in warm prickles. “Y-yeah.” I didn’t realize he had magic thawing powers.

“Good,” Trouble says, snapping his fingers. “Up then. We need to keep moving. The river will throw Hunger off for a while, but not long.”

“Wh-what?” I try to get up, but my limbs are shaking so badly I can’t do it. “You mean you t-trashed my only expensive dress and g-gave me hypothermia for n-n- _nothing_?”

“Not nothing.” Trouble has begun pacing back and forth along the bank, brushing his fingers over the nearby rocks and trees. “I bought us at least five minutes.”

“Wh-what are you d-doing?” I ask.

“Setting trip-lines.” Trouble waves a hand and suddenly a dozen crisscrossing threads shimmer into view, connected to the rocks and trees all around us where before there seemed to be nothing at all. Spider web. As he lets his hand fall, the shine goes away and they are invisible again. “Hunger won’t sense them as he prowls around for our scent, but the moment he touches one…” Trouble indicates the end of the thread still attached to his hand, “I’ll feel it and we’ll know he’s found our trail. This trick might predate your species by a few million years, but it’s still a good one. Now, let’s move.”

“I c-c-can’t,” I shudder, slipping in the mud as I try to get up again.

Trouble rolls his eyes and I think I hear him mutter ‘ _humans_ ,’ before taking me by my arms and pulling me to my feet. “Of course you can. You’ve written characters in and out of worse spots than this.”

“Yeah, but those things _weren’t real_!”

“You made them so to many people. This is the kind of adventure you always spun with your mind and keyboard, isn’t it? Well, now you’re living it.”

“Yeah… I think I’ve had enough.”

“Don’t be like that. We’re just getting started.” He takes my shoulders and squeezes, his grip fiery, and tingling, and almost painful. “Breathe it in. _Feel_ it.”

“Yeah…” I say gingerly. “It doesn’t feel very good.”

“Goodness is dull. Do you not feel _alive_?”

“I guess… as long as we don’t die in five minutes.”

“Come now,” Trouble tugs my arm to get me moving, “We’re not going to die,” and I don’t quite buy his casual, dismissive tone. As we walk, he unrolls more thread from some unseen place inside his sleeve, casually looping it around trees and low-hanging branches.

“So you have a plan?” I say anxiously.

“Well… I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘plan’… I have a few _ideas_.”

“Oh my god,” I groan, putting my face in my hands. _This is not happening!_

“Wrath must have chased one of my illusions far afield,” Trouble says, more to himself I think than anyone else, “Otherwise he would have swooped in immediately after Hunger tracked us down. We just need to take care of Hunger before Wrath joins him on our trail.”

“We’re going to die…” I whimper faintly. “We’re actually going to die…”

“Alright, enough of that!” Trouble snaps, giving the back of my head a sharp swat that makes me stumble. “I can get us out of this, but not if you’re going to sit around crying about it.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” I demand shrilly, rounding on him. “You just—just threw me into all of this without any warning. What am I supposed to do?”

“Use your brain,” he says coldly.

“I _can’t_ do that if you never actually update me on what fuck is going _on_!” I scream.

“I update you on what’s going on.”

“Okay—except— apparently you don’t,” I snarl. “You _lied_ to me about the coast being clear of demons! Why the hell did you _lie_?”

“I was bored.”

“You were _bored_?” I repeat, my indignation almost beyond words. “You lied about something that could get us both _killed_ because _you were bored_?”

“Look.” He rolls his eyes again and I just want to punch him. “Fate was going to discover our location sooner or later. I was tired of waiting. I figured tonight was as good a night as any.”

I feel my nails digging into my palms as my hands clench into fists and my numbness starts to turn to hot rage. “And you couldn’t have _told_ me?”

“I just did.”

“I mean _before_ you sent me waltzing out into the demon-infested night in a skimpy dress!”

“You didn’t need to know. Besides, I wanted you to have your silly dance; it seemed so important to you.”

“Not more important than _staying alive,_ you stupid fucking—Jesus _Christ_ , Trouble!”

“In my defense, I didn’t think the demons would find you quite so quickly… I didn’t realize the bastard would send Hunger.”

“What do you mean?” I demand. “Why does that make a difference?”

“His sense of smell is unparalleled. If I left behind so much as a feather with my scent on it, his nose would have led them straight to us.”

“And you didn’t think to warn me about any of this?” I demand, still seething.

“Last I checked, Fate had Hunger stowed in Somalia and Wrath somewhere far south of here. My reconnaissance range has been limited what with the whole returning to _you_ for reports twice a day, so excuse me for not keeping up with Fate’s rotating hand of deities.”

“Oh, okay. So, now this is _my_ fault?” I say incredulously.

“Blame is such an ugly thing to throw around,” he says lightly. “This is no one’s fault; it is simply what is happening.”

“ _I’d_ say it’s someone’s fault,” I growl through gritted teeth. “You lied, you—”

“I honestly don’t see why this is such a surprise to you,” Trouble laughs, winding his thread playfully about his fingers as we go. “Trickster… it’s kind of in the job description.”

“But—you—”

“Look, having you leave the house in the night was the surest way to draw Fate’s puppets to our location. And I _had_ to get out.” He shakes his head. “Do you know how difficult it is for me to stay in one place, in _one house,_ for _months_? I am not a domestic creature! I need _movement_! I need _change_!”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have come to my house in the first place!”

Just then, Trouble stops in his tracks, his fingers twitching around the thread in his hand. “Run.”

“What—”

“Hunger’s found our trail already. _Run_.”

Panic forces my chilled, aching muscles to move. I feel like I’m sprinting faster than I ever have in my life, but the insistent tugging on my arm tells me that I’m still painfully slow for the God of Mischief.

“Brace yourself, Chavez,” he says as our feet pick up speed.

“For wha—” I start to ask, but it promptly plunges right into a scream when the ground beneath our feet just _ends_ and, for the second time that night, I find myself freefalling. He turns us over—upside-down or right side up, I can’t even tell in the darkness—and I think I feel him springing off something before sending us tumbling through the air again. Then, with a sharp thump, we’re on solid ground again.

When he sets me on my feet, I totter for a moment while the world keeps spinning around me. When I get myself steady, I register steep walls of rock and dirt rising up on either side of us. We’ve landed at the bottom of some kind of ravine… maybe carved into the ground by some offshoot of the river that no longer runs this way. I want to lean against the one of the rocks and catch my breath, but Trouble is already moving again and I have to scramble to follow the mirage-like flap of his coat deeper into the ravine.

We don’t run long before the ravine ends in a dark, tight little corner.

“Ahh.” Trouble smiles up at the sheer rock face enclosing us, his eyes and teeth flashing in the dark. “Excellent.”

“ _Excellent_?” I say. “What about this is even a little bit excellent? We’re _trapped_.”

He lets out a sinister, half-mad chuckle. “Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you missed the note at the beginning, Muffin Silvertongue will be going on a one-month hiatus until February 6th. I'm so sorry to leave you all on a cliff-hanger, but be assured that updates will return to normal in February. 
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.


	14. Lying Low

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, I feel like I've made you guys suffer enough so, even though I'm not done being horrifically busy and haven't gotten to proofread at all, here is the next chapter. Thank you all so much for your patience. You're the best and I'm garbage. Enjoy!
> 
> For art, and updates, and other fun stuff, you can follow the story's blog at muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com or my weird personal blog at imachinator.tumblr.com.

“ _bro, bro ur hand looks heavy. let me hold it for u.”_

—notmakoto.tumblr.com

 

“Stand here.” Trouble takes my shoulders and wheels me right into the tiny V-shaped dead-end created by the ravine’s walls. “Now, this next part will go faster in my arachnid form. Feel free to close your eyes, but please, no screaming.”

And in a dark whirl, he has curled up into a tiny spider and all but disappeared. All I make out is a fleck of blackness, shooting up one of the sloping walls faster than any spider should be able to move, and I lose sight of him. A few hairsbreadth shimmers of silver tell me he is casting spider web… a whole lot of it, from wall to wall across the ravine in front of me. I try to pick up a pattern, but he moves so fast, my eyes can barely keep up. After a few moments, I make out the familiar circular shape of the prey-catching webs I’ve seen strung between tree branches and flower stems, only this one is much bigger, stretching a good three feet above my head and far out on either side. The web completely cuts off the ravine in front of me, leaving me just a few feet around where I’m standing. _He’s sealing me in,_ I think in panic, _he’s trapping me!_ I start to take a step forward but Trouble’s warning voice stops me.

“You don’t want to touch that. It might not look strong, but it’ll have you stuck for a week. Now, your part in this plan is easy: all you have to do is stand there and look terrified as hell. Just like that. Excellent.”

“Hold on a second!” I protest, unable to stop the panic from welling up into my voice. “Am I _bait?_ ”

“Yes.”

“What are you—”

“Oh, shut up, would you?” God, it’s weird being snapped at by a spider. “I need to concentrate. This is not as easy as it looks.”

Trouble is still zipping back and forth when a familiar roar rings out somewhere in the distance, and then again… much closer.

“Right on time,” Trouble hums as the last of the silver retreats from the web, leaving it as invisible as the air around us. He unfurls into a man again, standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders, just as Hunger’s monstrous form appears, bristling, at the lip of the ravine not far from where we made our descent. The demon takes the drop in a single leap and prowls forward on all fours. I take in that impossible mouth full of teeth, all jagged and yellowing, and at least as long as my index finger and try not to wonder what it would feel like to have them tear into my body… How quickly would I die? I want to back away, but Trouble holds me firmly by the shoulders.

“Look, Hunger— or Fate— or whoever I’m talking to, we both know I can’t contend with you in my current condition. You want the human so badly, I’ll give her to you.” He pushes me out in front of him. “She is of little importance to me, just a passing game really.” He lets out a nervous laugh. “Go ahead. Take her. Just let me go unharmed.”

“Liesmith,” Fate’s incongruous voice drones out of that terrible mouth. “We are millennia past negotiation.”

Hunger surges toward us. I gasp and start to scramble back, but Trouble’s hands have already plucked me up by the arms and we are suddenly shooting upward in what feels like a flap of wings. I didn’t think Trouble could fly in his human form, let alone with my weight added to his. But somehow, in a moment, we’ve rocketed up over Hunger’s head and presumably over the invisible web to come back down on the other side.

 Our feet hit the ground just as Hunger plunges headlong into the web and sticks there. The threads become visible with the strain as the demon thrashes, snarling, and tries to untangle himself. For a terrible moment, it looks like he’s going tear the delicate-looking thing to shreds, but the thread stretches, snaps back, and it holds.

“We certainly are,” Trouble smirks and then swoops in to circle Hunger, casting dozens more loops of web around the struggling creature. His hands move with unbelievable speed and in moments, the demon is forced to his knees and practically immobilized in a tightening tangle of silver thread. I can’t tell if the whole thing is cool or… just really creepy. Either way, I can’t stop watching.

Grabbing ahold of Hunger’s unruly mane of hair to hold his head still, Trouble forms a knife in his hand and raises it. “If you’re in there, brother, I’m sorry.”

I _do_ look away when Trouble brings the knife slashing down on the demon’s face, but it probably would have been better to cover my ears. Hunger’s shriek of agony fills up the ravine for a single hideous, bone-rattling moment before it is quickly smothered. When I look up, Trouble is wrapping a layer of webbing around Hunger’s head.

“Y-you didn’t—”

“He’ll be fine.” Trouble runs an almost gentle hand over Hunger’s hair as he slides his way around to bring himself face to face with the demon. “He just won’t be sniffing anything out any time soon. Now…” He takes Hunger’s head in his hands and tips it so that the demon’s clouded eyes are level with his own. “If only exorcism on possessed demons was in the how-to books. How… how do I snap you out of this stupidity?” He mutters, I think more to himself than me, or Fate, or Hunger. “Pain doesn’t seem to do much good and neither does my lovely voice… How is the fucker doing this to you?” Trouble spreads his fingers out along the temples of that massive skull and shifts them around as though feeling for something. He is peering into the demon’s eyes so intently that I don’t think he notices the sky reddening through the trees.

“Um… Trouble?” I say, but the God of Mischief is still engrossed in his magical mind-meld. “ _Trouble_?”

“Give me a moment. I’m still trying to figure out the source of the—”

“ _Trouble_!” I reach out and yank on the collar of his coat as Wrath’s ground-shaking roar swells up through the night.

“What—oh…” Trouble’s eyes turn to the sky. “ _Fuck_.”

“Running now?” I say.

“Or something a little faster.” Trouble scoops me up under the arms as his coat changes to wrap around us and sweep out to either side in feathery shadows. This time I’m almost certain I feel a flap of wings against the air and ground, launching us into the air, but it’s impossible for me to twist around and see. I feel the breath sucked from my lungs as that first surge sends us shooting up over the edge of the ravine. For an ugly, lurching moment, I feel us falling. Then, in another flap, we are back up, swooping and plunging through the trees. And if I thought we were going fast when he was a horse, this is ten—twenty—times faster. The wind is deafening in my ears and I feel like a skinless piece of flesh against its teeth. I don’t think I would be able to see where we were going if I could bear to open my eyes. Trouble has me sort of shielded with his body and his coat, but it _hurts_. Holy _fuck,_ it hurts!

I’m almost relieved when we wobble, dip, and then go crashing into the snow. It stings like hell, I think the initial impact takes the skin off both knees, and I tumble over the bruising ground more times than I can count before finally coming to a stop. For a moment, I can only lie on my back, stunned, trying to figure out how to breathe again, but at least I no longer feel like I’m being sucked out of the back of a moving plane. At a frustrated groaning noise, I turn my head to see Trouble, dragging himself to his hands and knees, looking almost as battered and disoriented as I am.

He’s in human form… sort of. Something is going wrong with the fabric—or feather—or whatever that part of him is along his back. Shadowy, skeletal structures contort and tangle as he tries to fold them back in between his shoulder blades.

“The… the fuck?” I say when I feel like I’ve gulped enough air into my chest to make words. “What was… what just happened?”

“ _Aghh_.” Trouble grimaces, clutching at his back as he struggles to rearrange himself into his usual shape. “Evidently that _still_ isn’t a good idea.”

“What’s the matter?” I ask, afraid to move any more and find out how badly I’ve hurt my own body. “Why the terrible landing?”

“My landings are _never_ terrible,” Trouble snarls, uncharacteristically angry.

“Oh, so you _meant_ to do that?”

“Shut up! I’m—listen, I am an _excellent_ flyer, the _best_. I just haven’t—I c-can’t…” One of his wing-like bones doesn’t seem interested in folding back into place. He looks back at the offending appendage in disgust before hostilely cramming the thing back into his shoulder with a crunch of bone. “It’s just not going well tonight.”

 “Does this have to do with your powers not working the way they used to?”

“Let’s not talk about my powers, mm?” He says, giving me a tight smile.

“Okay well, wh-what are we going to do?” I ask. “How do we deal with Wrath?”

“We don’t.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” I sit up and find that scraped knees and a few bruises seem to be the extent of the damage to my body. No broken bones. “What do we do?”

“Hide and hope he doesn’t find us.”

“And you… you said he’ll just keep going until morning?”

“That he will. I don’t have the energy to run from him all night, especially not with you in tow. We will lay low.”

“Where? How?”

“I can easily conceal the two of us from view, but Wrath has good hearing. We will have to be silent if we hope to stay hidden until sunrise or… whenever the furnace of his rage burns out.” Trouble straightens up on his knees and winces, pressing a hand to his lower back. “Come here.”

“What?”

“I c… am not inclined to run any further. And from the look of you, neither are you. Here is as good a place to hide as any. Come on. Quickly. I feel him getting closer.”

“Okay…” I start to crawl to where he sits at the foot of a particularly large pine tree, but the moment I put my scraped knees to the ground the searing pain has me stumbling to my feet. When I reach him, he pulls me down beside him.

“Lie close to the ground.” His voice is no more than a dark whisper. “I will weave a cloaking spell to hide us.” Putting a hand on my shoulder, he pushes me down into the freezing ground so I’m lying on my side. “It will work better if you keep your body as still as possible.”

“And you can’t, like, mute us?” I whisper, remembering how he seemed perfectly capable of simulating the sounds of hoof beats and squawking with his illusions earlier.

“I can mask _my own_ sound and appearance easily.” I feel a smooth, fire-like prickle of something against my skin as Trouble’s hand draws a veil of cloaking magic over me. I can’t see it—except for maybe the barest ripple of shadow for a moment—but I _feel_ it… almost like there is an airy layer of fabric resting on top of me. “My magic is not exactly developed for use on humans, so covering you is infinitely more difficult.”

“But—what if—”

“ _Shh_.” He hisses. “Unless you’re dying to know what it’s like to be in several thousand pieces, keep still and _silent_.”

Settling down on the ground behind me, his body just barely touching mine, he waves his hand. In a shiver of movement, a dozen small black animals—rabbits, coyotes, and cats with little white feet—appear and then break to dash off in different directions. He is clearly hoping that the fresh batch of decoys will draw Wrath as from away from our real location than the last ones did. But the illusions are fewer and smaller this time, like the God of Mischief is running low on energy, and I wonder how many times Wrath—or rather Fate—is likely to fall for the same trick.

A shuffle of movement not far from our tree makes me tense until I make out the shape of a lean, four-legged animal. At first I can’t figure out why Trouble is bringing one of his decoys so close to our hiding place. Then a patch of moonlight falls on its legs. Golden-brown. All of Trouble’s animal forms are darker than that. An antlered head dips into view, its eyes wide and blank, with nothing of the trickster’s intelligence in them. It’s a just a deer.

All of a sudden, the world flashes red and a screaming bang splits through my skull. In that single heart-stopping screech, the deer is gone… scattered into a thousand pieces. A bloody cloven hoof thuds to the ground less than a foot in front of my face.

I feel the breath seize in my throat.

Wrath swoops low over us with in a fiery-dark whoosh and my frantic heart nearly jumps out of my chest. If I manage not to scream, it’s only because I am breathless with terror. The next whoosh comes suddenly and it is louder, closer. And a pair of black boots hit the ground hard enough to make me flinch. Wrath straightens up slowly, surveying the blasted ground where the deer stood only a moment ago. The demon has to be at least ten feet tall… maybe taller, with bulging arms, each as big around as I am, and a mane of fiery red hair that flares and bristles with a life all its own. He breathes through his teeth and everything about him seems to seethe and crackle, ready to snap at any moment. He turns around with a sharp jerk of his muscled shoulders and suddenly seems to be staring straight at our hiding place.

Choking to keep the high whimper in my throat from getting out, I clamp both hands over my mouth and squeeze until I feel my teeth digging into the insides of my cheeks. Wrath begins pacing closer, seeming to become impossibly taller and more mountainous with each foreboding footfall.

 My breath comes back too fast, in and out through my nose in sharp, panicked huffs. Trouble’s hand is on my shoulder then, squeezing, more in urgency, I think, than an attempt to comfort me. He wants me to shut up. I _need_ to shut up. Or we’re both going to get pulverized by rage incarnate.

And now Wrath is practically on top of us, no more than two feet away. Another step and those massive feet are going to trip over me. Flexing hands large enough to crush my ribcage, the demon breathes steam through his teeth and leans closer… so close that I can see a vein pulsing in his sinuous tree-trunk of a neck. His furious, silver-glazed eyes are narrowed, searching the darkened ground where we lie hidden. All he needs to do is reach out with one of those hands… and we’re finished.

Once, when I was little, I found a chickadee with a broken wing in the street in front of my house. Dad told me not to touch it, but I couldn’t stop imagining the little thing getting crushed under the wheels of some passing car, and I went back for it when he wasn’t looking, stooped down, and picked it up carefully between my hands. It flapped against me with all its tiny strength, but all its efforts did nothing. I still remember how it went still after a moment and trembled, but more than anything, I remember the way its warm, tiny heart beat so helplessly fast against my fingers. I had never known an animal’s heart could beat so fast… I remember thinking how small this living creature was… that all I would have to do was squeeze my hands together… even just a tiny bit, and it would be crushed. With next to no effort at all, I could kill it… And all it could do was sit there, still except for its feathered chest pumping in and out and its little heart beating faster, and faster, and faster…

My heart feels like that now. It’s pounding at twice its normal speed, so fast it seems to be fluttering back and forth inside me. Back and forth, and back and forth… That’s when I realize that my heart _can’t_ actually be beating that fast, that heartbeats don’t echo… and they don’t beat in _two places at once_. The echo is coming from the chest pressed against my back. It’s Trouble’s. Curled under Wrath’s gaze, the god is just as afraid as I am. The realization shouldn’t be a comfort. It shouldn’t… but somehow, it’s the only thing that keeps me from whimpering in terror.

Wrath’s eyes rake our hiding place one more time and then fall on the disembodied hoof in front of me. His face curls into a snarl and he lets out a deafening shriek. A fist bigger than my head slams down on the deer’s hoof and a moment later, the demon surges to his feet and backhands a nearby tree clean in half. The sound of splintering wood fills the forest as the top half of the unfortunate pine topples over to crash into its fellows. Then, with a roar that shakes me to my bone marrow, Wrath turns and tears off into the forest in a cloud of red flame.

The red fades and everything is quiet again. But my heart is still beating like crazy. I curl in on myself, despite the sting as raw scraped skin stretches over my kneecaps, and feel my hands trembling over my mouth. _Oh my god, oh my god,_ I mouth into my hands as I try to bring down the shaking in my limbs. I don’t know if it’s the panic, or the cold, or the shock of the temperature change catching up with me, but the more I try to steady my breathing, the worse it gets, and the harder I shake until I feel like I might shake into a millions pieces without Wrath ever touching me.

I’m starting to feel tears burning my eyes when Trouble moves behind me, putting an arm over me as though to pull me closer. For whatever reason, the movement is unsure, lacking his usual grace. He hesitates for a moment, drawing his arm back minutely, a faint rustle of fabric above me. Then he seems to make up his mind and shifts a fraction closer to lay his arm over me, covering me with his warmth. He pauses again and his hand lingers suspended before me for a moment as though unsure where to settle. After a moment he moves his arm a little closer to mine and pauses again as though waiting for a reaction. When I don’t flinch or move away, he slowly, hesitantly, lays the arm atop mine, mirroring it shoulder to elbow, forearm to wrist.

The action is so strange, so… out of character that I lie there for a good minute or two just staring at the arm over mine with my brow creased in confusion, the imminent danger almost forgotten. Does putting part of his body over mine make it easier for him to hide both of us? Or is he… actually trying to calm me? No. No, that’s stupid. He’s not really the calming type. Idly flirting, yes, but he’s never been genuinely thoughtful or supportive… I don’t think. Besides, tonight has clearly demonstrated that he has next to no regard for my well-being, let alone my feelings. Maybe he just thinks the gesture will soothe me enough to keep me quiet. But then why the obvious, awkward indecision? He doesn’t usually treat me like I have cooties. Maybe he just didn’t want to startle me… Or maybe I’m _totally_ overthinking all of this. That’s probably it.

His arm is longer than mine. The tips of my longest three fingers rest just under the heel of his hand. I can make out a bit of blood and spider’s thread still clinging to his long, slender fingers, but somehow it doesn’t bother me. Maybe I’m starting to get used to all this gore and madness. Or maybe I’m just relieved to have someone holding me right now…even if that someone is a dishonest, blood-spattered spider. Is that messed up? Probably, but whatever his reasons, I’m glad he put his arm over me, and I’m glad he keeps it there as I press my lips together and settle in for the longest night of my life.

The silence in the wake of Wrath’s departure doesn’t last long. Soon the darkness is alive with the sounds of more demons—or gods, or whatever supernatural beings Fate has called out to sweep the forest for us. I might have mistaken the newcomers for Wrath circling back for a third or fourth look over the area, or Hunger freed from Trouble’s trap, but they don’t sound like either of the demons we met earlier. These come in thrumming, and fluttering, and howling, and a dozen other sounds I can’t describe, each utterly distinct from the next. At one point, I think I see some of them moving around in the trees, but mostly I just hear them high above us or off in the distance. And fortunately, most of them stay in the distance.

At one point, I see a slender, soundless figure moving in the trees probably a hundred feet away. I wouldn’t be sure it’s a deity at all except that a slight turn of his head reveals a hint of silver in his eyes. I tense anxiously, but a moment later, he moves away into the trees.

Our closest brush comes not long after that, when a lithe figure stalks into view. I almost don’t notice him at first because his calculated footsteps are so quiet and, like Trouble, he seems to melt in and out of his surroundings like a shadow. His beat-up gray-brown jacket blends in with the trees and he has a steady, graceful way of moving—quiet yet flowing with power—that brings to mind the lions I’ve seen in African wildlife documentaries. There is a short spear grasped in his hand and rested lightly along his forearm with its tip pointing at the ground.

As he turns slowly, tracing an elegant circle with the spear tip and his eyes, I get a view of the myriad of other weapons strapped to his waist and back; a quiver of arrows, more than one bow, a wide array of knives, a _rifle_ … a… _boomerang?_ and a number of other long, sharp-looking things I can’t even identify. So, I guess he’s a deity of war, or assassination, or something along those lines… whatever he is, he doesn’t look like someone we want to tangle with and I find myself clenching my jaw as he stalks the perimeter of the decimated space left by Wrath’s attack on the deer.

 _Walk away,_ I will the stalking deity, _please just turn around and walk away._ But as he reaches the edge of the crater nearest our hiding place, he pauses, and then sinks to one knee, carefully brushing aside a few dead leaves with the tip of his spear. His eyes zero in on something on the ground that I can’t see. Sliding the spear into its holster on his back, the deity lowers himself forward, placing the other knee and then both hands on the ground. Then he begins to crawl… slowly, in tiny measured movements, studying each new inch of ground intently before placing a hand or a knee.

As he creeps closer, it occurs to me that the ground he is covering is exactly where _I_ crawled to get to Trouble at the base of this tree. Suddenly, I understand what he is doing and my heart sinks in horror. He is following our trail, movement by movement over the snowy ground. He knows we were here. He _knows_. Fuck… fuck, fuck, _fuck!_

And now he is almost on top of us, eyes staring straight at me, just as Wrath’s did.  His expression defies description; calm—almost frighteningly so—and yet somehow drawn with palpable alertness.

 _Okay, okay_ , I tell myself, trying not to panic, _those sharp things are scary and those muscles are looking kind of intimidating, but at least he isn’t impossibly huge like Wrath or Hunger. Maybe Trouble will be able to take him. Maybe—_

But at that moment, the deity comes to a stop, his brow creasing in confusion. Then he looks up, into the branches of the tree above us. What’s going on? Why did he stop? Did the trail end there—or rather, did Trouble find some way to make it _look like_ it ended there? It certainly seems as though he did because the direction of the dark deity’s gaze seems to suggest that he thinks we climbed the pine tree or took to the air from that spot. He lingers there for a moment, his tongue flicking out as though to taste the air, and then launches himself from the ground. I only catch brief a glimpse of massive, hawk-like wings spreading against the darkness before the mysterious tracker is gone, flown off to search some other part of the forest.

For a second time that night, I let the breath out of my lungs and find myself shaking. I am so spent from all the running, and flying, and shock, and sheer panic, I feel like I could pass out right there on the ground under Trouble’s arm. Maybe that would be better. Maybe staying still and silent as the most powerful forces in the universe go sniffing around for my blood would be easier if I just fall unconscious…

I close my eyes for a while and try to just let it happen, but I can’t. My muscles are all tightened to the snapping point, my mind spinning with images of gaping jaws and bursts of blood. Even when I feel exhaustion pulling me off to someplace quieter and shrouded in the blissful illusion of safety, a fraying, panicked part of my brain jerks my eyes open again. Every sound makes my heart jump. My muscles are burning from tension, but I can’t relax them. I _can’t_.

I still have my eyes strained shut in an agony of alertness when I feel a faint twitch of movement against the back of my hand. Thankful for the distraction from myself and the circling danger, I open my eyes. All I see is Trouble’s hand, still resting lightly atop mine. His fingers have begun to move, twitching restlessly against the ground beneath them. I’m not sure if I should be annoyed, amused, or panicked. On the one hand, _he’s_ the one who said we needed stay completely still, insisting that the smallest movement could draw attention… on the other, he never _could_ sit still for more than a minute back in my room, not as Muffin or any creature. It figures—it’s almost funny—that he literally can’t keep his fidgeting under control to save his own life. Either I am simply too drained to manage any more panic or I’ve just lost my mind, but I find myself smiling.

Before long, he’s rubbing his thumb back and forth over the silver thread still wound around his fingers. There’s quite a bit of it, I realize as his hand moves, subtly catching bits of moonlight at different angles. He begins to pluck at it, twitchily, nervously, like a kid unable to resist picking at a scab. Oddly enough, the thread seems resistant to his picking, sticking insistently to his skin even as he rubs, and scratches, and peels at it. It’s his own magic, right? Shouldn’t he be able to undo it as easily as he spun it in the first place? I don’t know; maybe he’s just unwinding it manually to pass the time.

 I watch as he picks at a thread around his index finger by degrees until it comes loose and drifts down to rest in the dirt beside my hand. Soon after, he is able to peel away the rest of the webbing on that finger, but he can’t seem to work his way free of a stubborn series of threads binding his middle and ring fingers together. If anything the fibers seem to grow tighter as he works at them… just as they tightened around Hunger.

After what might have been hours of fidgeting, he finally desists, letting his hand rest again atop mine again with a frustrated sigh that moves a few of the loose hairs along my part, those last strands still wound insistently around his fingers. The threads have tightened so much now that they are cutting into his skin and it seems like there is nothing he can do about it. He really can’t get them off… _Why?_ It doesn’t make any sense. He’s the one who _made_ that thread.

I lie there for a long time, watching his fingers squirm uncomfortably in their tiny silver threaded prison. Without realizing it, I’ve started chewing on my lip. I can almost feel the itch on my own skin as his hand twitches again… and again… and all in one moment, I take his hand in mine and begin picking at the webbing with my own smaller fingers.

His hand jerks slightly in my grasp, as though surprised, but then again, he’s been twitching like that for at least half an hour now. Honestly, I don’t care if he wants my help or not—if I even _can_ help— I just couldn’t stand watching anymore. The spider web is strong. I figured as much from watching it work on the rabid Demon of Hunger, but there are places, loose ends, where it can be pulled apart, patiently, a tiny bit at a time. It takes me a while… a long time… but eventually, I’m able to unwind the silvery self-made bonds, one hair-thin filament at a time…

Finally, the last of it falls away, floating delicately to the ground to join the little pool of silver threads that has accumulated among the leaves. It might be my imagination, but I think I feel the god’s muscles relax… as though in relief. We are both still for a long moment as I watch the offending webbing shimmer where it lies in the dirt. The eerie silver glow it exudes slides in and out of existence, like a dark feather fluttering on the air, or the scales of an undulating reptile, catching the light for a moment here, a moment there, before gliding back into darkness. For something so problematic and dangerous, Trouble’s magic really is beautiful…

That’s when I realize I’m still holding his hand. After peeling away the last of the spider’s thread, I never put it down… and he didn’t take it away. I should put it down. I should. But for whatever reason, I don’t let go… I don’t want to. He hasn’t pulled away. He must not mind the contact, awkward as it is. And while I have him… while he’s letting me… I might as well observe, right? Because hey, how often does a girl get an up-close-and-personal look at any part of a god? This is a learning experience, I tell myself. It’s educational… that’s what it is.

Biting my lip, I turn his hand over and run a cautious fingertip over the gentle curve of each of his nails, wondering at how, in an instant, they can morph into claws, or talons, or lightning hooves. Yet, here in the stillness, they seem so gentle and unthreatening… so human. His hand is bigger than my sister’s or my mom’s, more slender than my dad’s… and it seems to fit in mine like none of theirs.

The deity does not protest as I uncurl each of his fingers in turn, feeling the sinewy strength of muscle just beneath the skin. Smooth as they are, they are calloused like a human’s fingers would be after a lifetime of weaving, strumming, fighting and… whatever else a god of mischief does. What _have_ these hands done in their millions of years? What have they woven and spun? What have they touched? I wonder… probably much more than I would have time to experience—or even hear about—in my fleeting human lifetime. The thought fills me with a deep sadness overlaid by a quiet thrill of excitement, and somewhere in between them, a desperate something that makes me feel tiny, and hungry, and like I might cry.

I let my thumb trail down the inside of his index finger to rub across the hardened ridges of leathery skin where his digits meet his palm. He keeps his hand open, his fingers extended where I put them, and I stay there for a time, roving slowly back and forth over his callouses. While my thumb drops down to trace the river-like lines across his palm, my fingertips explore the map of pronounced knuckles and powerful ligaments that make up the back of his hand.

I wonder then if he’s been studying me as intently as I’ve been studying him this whole time. Probably not. Trouble might be the first god I’ve ever known, but he’s seen billions of humans from their first breath to their last. Somehow I doubt he finds me quite as fascinating as I find him. I mean, sure he often watches me and converses with me as though I interest in him, but I think that has more to do with my knowledge of the Internet and the twenty-first century in general than… me. It does unnerve me a little bit that I can’t see his face right now… But then again, he can’t see mine either. And besides, all he’s got to study is the top of my head… and everyone around me has to be pretty used to _that_ sight, I think wryly.

Somewhere in the woods, a deity howls, but I don’t stiffen at the sound. It seems very far away now… I let the back of my hand rest in Trouble’s palm. I don’t know why… it just seems like it should go there…

Then, in one decisive pulse of motion, Trouble curls his fingers in, sliding them in between mine. He has been still for so long that the movement startles me. Perhaps feeling my body tense in surprise, he falters and then starts to withdraw his hand. But before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve closed my fingers around his, stopping his retreat, returning the embrace… _You can stay._

His hand is unmoving in mine for a heartbeat, tendons drawn, as though my reaction has surprised him and he isn’t quite sure what to do next… Then it relaxes. His fingers flex themselves deeper in between mine. And we stay there, two weird little beings, in a nighttime of strangeness, cradled in one another.

The strain melts out of my body, from my stomach, right down to my fingertips and I suddenly realize how hopelessly tired I am. My eyes begin to drift closed as Trouble’s warmth seeps into me. I’m not sure if I feel safe exactly. But extraordinarily, I feel content.

The world darkens and I slide out of consciousness on a silver thread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> muffinsilvertongue.tumblr.com


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